And You Thought All Chickens Were Brown

The real connoisseur, when asked to describe the colour of his chicken replies, "Nankin spangled".

Barring: Stripes of light and dark across each feather.
Bay: Browny red colour.
Brassiness: Yellow colouring on the back and wing feathers.
Cuckoo banding: Stripes where the boundaries are indistinct.
Daw eyed: Pearly eyes like a Jackdaw.
Double laced: Two stripes running round the edge of the feather.
Dusky: Yellowy black colouring.
Foxy: A rusty red colour.
Frizzled: Feathers that curl back on themselves, with the end eventually pointing towards the bird\'s head.
Gay: Plumage with too much white in the marking.
Ground colour: The main plumage colour.
Lacing: A thin stripe of colour running all the way around the edge of a feather.
Lustre: Shiny plumage. When the feathers are black this is described as a sheen.
Mealy: Ground colour mottled with a paler colour.
Moons: Round spangles at the tip of the feathers.
Mossy: A muddled marking.
Mottled: Plumage marked with spots of different colour.
Nankin: A yellowy colour named after nankeen cloth.
Pencilling: Fine lines marking on the feathers.
Peppering: A dark colour stippled over a lighter one.
Self colour: A uniformly coloured bird.
Sheen: Green surface shine on black feathers.
Spangled: The pattern produced when there is a spot of colour at the end of the feathers differing from the ground.
Splashed: Contrasting colour to ground randomly splashed over feathers
Ticked: Feathers with a v-shaped marking at the tip.
Undercolour: The colour of the fluff under the main feathers.
Wing bar: A line of colour across the middle of a wing.