Lavender Orpington Genetics

[Crazy_Beautiful]

I’m trying to understand.

Just learning about Orpington genetics.
I have a Lav Roo who has a great personality and after a few bad Roos we want to keep him for now.

I have 2 lav hens with not the best feathering.
And hatching out some blue/ lav / chocolate… these chicks were covered by either a lav or chocolate Roo.

I have a name of someone to write next spring for some blacks… which I fully understand are important.

But what happens if we hatch out some next spring from my mix of lav/ blue or chocolate? Is it just a don’t keep certain colours or any bred back to lavender work be lavender?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Lavender is recessive, so what that means is that a bird needs to inherit two copies of the gene, one from its mother and one from its father, to express it. If you breed a bird who is Lavender to a bird with no copies of the gene, then all offspring are not Lavender, but carry the gene, otherwise known as being split for the gene. Breeding a split with a Lavender bird produces about half Lavenders and half splits. So in other words, yes, any offspring of a Lavender bird bred back to a Lavender bird will produce at least some Lavenders.

As for not keeping certain colors, my understanding is that most people advise against breeding Blue and Lavender together because it can be very difficult to tell a Lavender bird from a bird with both Blue and Lavender. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with breeding them together as long as you're open and honest with anyone who buys birds from you about the possibility that they could be both Lavender and Blue so that they can decide if they want such a bird and how to proceed with it.

 

[Crazy_Beautiful]

I’ve been searching for photos of a Lavender with Blue but don’t see anything.

Does Blue get bad feathers as well?

I have self blue Cochins and 1 has bad feathering. Or is Self Blue same as saying Lavender?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Self Blue is the same as Lavender, yes. Near as I can tell, the term 'Self Blue' is preferred by the people printing the standard, but the term 'Lavender' is preferred by, well, pretty much everyone else as the much less confusing term for the gene.

I don't honestly know much about the feather shredding gene except that it's associated with Lavender and often inherited along with it. Regular Blue, the one that makes Blue, Black, and Splash when breeding it, does not seem to have the same issue with feather shredding, no.