Hi friends! Questions about Lavender Ameraucanas. Pics including.

[CallMeMealworm]

Hi! It's been a while since I've been here! Hope you all are doing well.

I have a question about lavender Ameraucanas. Well, a few questions, actually.

I bought what I thought were black Ameraucanas and ended up with a few lavender. I hope I got at least one black hen, but I'm not sure that I did. I did a hatch from shipped eggs.

Anyway, these two hatched out of those eggs.

One, I'd like to confirm that they are lavender. I assume they are but would like your all's experience.

Two, why do they look so different as they are feathering out? One has white or nearly white feathers and the other is darker blue.

Three, and this is the last question... How does lavender mesh with Salmon? I have a Salmon Faverolles hen and might breed some home bred olive eggers and am curious about what would happen if I bred a Lavender rooster to a salmon hen?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

You have one recessive White chick and one Lavender chick here. That's why they look so different.

As for breeding Lavender to Salmon, you would end up with mostly black chicks possibly with some color leakage in spots that shows up as they feather in. Lavender chickens are genetically solid black with the lavender gene diluting that color to pale gray, and solid black is dominant over most other colors. Since Lavender is recessive, all the chicks would carry it, but none would express it.

 

[CallMeMealworm]

Oh my! Thank you. So she's white? And the male is lavender? So how did I get a lavender chick and a recessive white chick out of a hatch that was supposed to be only black Ameraucanas?

I'm totally down with a bunch of black bearded chickens.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Oh my! Thank you. So she's white? And the male is lavender? So how did I get a lavender chick and a recessive white chick out of a hatch that was supposed to be only black Ameraucanas?

I'm totally down with a bunch of black bearded chickens.

The black Ameraucana that were used for breeding had to be split to lavender and must have been recessive for the white. Not uncommon. Lovely birds!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Recessive White pops up sometimes. Because it's recessive like Lavender, it can hide for a while and then suddenly show up when the right pair of birds breeds. A bird has to have two copies of it in order for it to express, so both parents have to be carrying it. I actually got a recessive White in my Cochin bantams out of Black parents, which was super confusing because the person I bought the eggs from had no idea her birds carried the gene. Now she has a whole flock of them that she breeds as well!

As for how you ended up with these birds, I couldn't tell you. Maybe the seller shipped you the wrong eggs? Maybe their Black flock carries the genes and they don't realize it? A lot of things could have happened here.

How did you sex them? All I can tell you for sure is the first picture in your original post is a recessive White chick and the second is a Lavender chick.

 

[CallMeMealworm]

Only intuition, I guess. He carries himself very upright and starts fights with literally everyone. She carries herself more horizontally and is not a pistol.

 

[CallMeMealworm]

My BCM/Salmon Faverolles mix this week. Looks like partridge to me but I'm not an expert and just breeding for fun