A rare breed is not so very rare in my town, ha, ha, ha. I hope everything goes well for you. His egg production is down and so is egg size. I suspect frostbite. Hewise, You are correct in your assumption.
Frostbite begins with a gray coloring, and then turns black.
I have one old rooster that had frostbite so bad on his comb, that the spikes actually turned black, dried up and fell off. That was my first winter in Missouri. I came from Texas, and I have learned a lot about cold weather management. This is a private posting area. A valid username and password combination is required to post messages to this discussion.