What is the best way in Postgres to inherit values from parent row recursively if not provided?

Is there a pattern in SQL where a child row inherits empty (null?) values from a parent? E.g., given the following 'chickens' table (sorry): | id | parent_id | name | flys | noise | weight | egg_color | special_feathers | |----|-----------|----------------|-------|---------|--------|-----------|------------------| | 1 | | chicken | true | clucks | 5lbs | white | false | | 2 | 1 | maran | | | | brown | | | 3 | 1 | silkie | false | squeeks | 4lbs | | | | 4 | 3 | silkie frizzle | | | | | true | I want to easily be able to do:

select * from chickens where egg_color = 'white'

and have it return all the chickens except for the maran. I don't want to explicitly set the values in child rows because I want to be able to update the parent data and have it updated everywhere. I think this can be accomplished via a recursive view, however I am curious if there are any other solutions. I am also not sure how to handle explicitly empty states other than with an empty string (which won't work for non-string fields). This might not be something we need to accommodate but want to see if anyone has ideas.