Lavender Orpington project ....

[kathyinmo]

I thought it may be nice to have a thread, for all of us to share our Lavender Orp project pictures and such. Can we do that? I would love to see and hear more about them. I absoluely love the lavender coloring!
I hatched mine around Halloween, 2009. My eggs came from scbatz (Sarah). They originate from Jody and Charlie (hinkjc). Here are a few pictures of them. (I do have many many more pictures!) My DH isn't really as chicken obsessed as I am, but he has two favorites .... the Delawares for personality and entertainment, and the Lavenders for their beautiful color.

 

[jeremy]

Since the mother provides the type and I have a lavender roo it seems it would be best to get black hens instead of getting a black roo. But the thing is the black roo would be easier to keep compared to lots of black hens on top of lavender hens. So that is why I am asking how many black hens would you recommend there need to be? I hope this makes sense.

Some believe this to be true... in my experience the roo lends just as much to type as the hens do.

My advice would be to use your Lav roo over Black hens, hatch lots of chicks and grow them out, keep the F1 roo with the best type and as many of the F1 pullets you can manage. From there breed these birds together. You can cull your original Lavender roo, as you no longer need him. You have the Lav gene in your F1 offspring so that is all you need from their sire.

Breeding F1 X F1 will produce a number of visibly Lavender chicks. Again, hatch as many chicks as you can possibly manage from the F1 X F1 breeding, grow them out and keep those with the best type. Also of the visibly Lavender chicks keep those with the best feather quality.

At this point I would select a F2 Lavender roo with the best type and best feather quality, if you have more than one great keep as many as you can manage, and breed him back to the original Black hens that you used, assuming that they still have superior type to your other F1 or F2 birds. At this point you're starting the described process above all over again.

Over time with each generation you should see improvement in both type and feather quality. Producing quality Lavender birds will take time, patience and a heavy hand when culling but if you're committed the project the resulting birds have the potential to be very beautiful.

 

[farmraised86]

Maybe I can help here, everyone has projects, everyone is a critic, every project has dead ends and areas that need work ( rome wasn't built in a day ) and many new strains and colors were started by introducing something else plus you CAN NOT start a new breed without crossing breeds or it wouldn't be a new breed at all... Critics are good because it keeps you motivated however know it alls are bad because most of the time they are closed minded and usually wrong but stick to they're guns, it could be worse someone could lie and say something is pure when its not! so everyone just take the bad with the good and try not to be so harsh to fellow flockers because we are the dieing breed

 

[388chick]

Maybe I can help here, everyone has projects, everyone is a critic, every project has dead ends and areas that need work ( rome wasn't built in a day ) and many new strains and colors were started by introducing something else plus you CAN NOT start a new breed without crossing breeds or it wouldn't be a new breed at all... Critics are good because it keeps you motivated however know it alls are bad because most of the time they are closed minded and usually wrong but stick to they're guns, it could be worse someone could lie and say something is pure when its not! so everyone just take the bad with the good and try not to be so harsh to fellow flockers because we are the dieing breed

For reall!! Holy smokes!! I am new to this thread as I just picked up my first little lav orp this weekend...and holy smokes there is a lot if rudeness on here!! One of my favorite things about raising chickens is finding other chicken friends and learning from them. This thread just seems harsh!

 

[catface]

Quote: As chicks I can't tell the difference. The English are normally much larger but mature much slower. If you have a nice English rooster you'll know. They are very round and "beach ball" looking.


English Rooster



American Rooster

 

[catface]

So I am very new to all chicken rearing. I have a small flock of Buff Orpingtons started and they are gorgeous.
I have managed to hatch two supposed lavender orpington chicks (they look very light grey to me) and I bought one small chick who I'm pretty sure is a young cockeral.

As the pullets are from different stock than the cockeral I had planned to breed them next summer to expand the flock.

In reading these posts though, it appears that the Lavender colouring is coming from mixing Black Orpingtons Lavender. Is that correct?

What would happen if I bred Lavender to Lavender?

THank you for feedback. I have no one in my area of Ontario who seems to have Lavender Orpingtons so I'm uneducated and so very excited!

Cheers

We breed lavenders to black to improve the feather quality and bloodlines. Lavenders tend to have "fretting" which is a fraying of the feathers and breeding to black will improve that. You certainly can breed lav to lav but it's a good idea to throw a black in there every few generations.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I absolutely LOVE lavender. I don't have any *yet*.

 

[Lensters]

Quote:
I'm getting my first Lav Split and Lav Orps this weekend and I'm hoping to learn more about them.

How do you determine sex of the chicks?

Do they go broody as often as the Buff Orps?

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
This is how it was explained to me .... The color, "blue," in the animal world is a grey shade, such as a blue heeler dog (it is grey). Grey chickens are called, "blue." Lavender is also called, "self blue," as another term. The easiest way to tell the difference in blue and lavender is by looking at the feather shaft .... blue has a dark shaft, and lavender has a light or white shaft.

Now, I am not 100% on this information, but this is how I understand it.

Another thing is .... you can't, "make," lavender from a blue or other. It is a gene, and has to originate from a bird with the lavender gene.

 

[scbatz33]

Quote:
I for one find this totally UN-acceptable!