Lavender Orpington project ....

[bit o poultry19]

I have been trying to find lavender orpingtons FOREVER. I have finally acquired two pullets, and since I have looked so hard for so long, I am looking in to breeding them. I am SO sorry if this has been asked before, but can someone explain to me the difference (genetically) between the blues and the self blues (lavenders)? Is it a dilution gene? Would I be better off getting a lavender rooster or a black rooster, and what is black split to lavender? What happens if I cross a lavender rooster over a blue hen? I have one GORGEOUS blue orpington hen, but she is very old. I am considering adding more blues to my flock though.

Blues are blue/black/splash, and if properly bred blues have lacing on their chests. Splash is the true blue since its consistent, Black×Splash= 100% Blue. Blue×Blue=50% Blue 25% Black 25% Splash. Black×Blue= 50% Black 50% Blue. Black×Black= 100% Black. And Blue×Splash= 50% Blue 50% Splash

Lavender is a resessive gene and 2 copies to breed true, 1 copy of lavender is a split and 2 copies a lavender.

Better to get a Black or Black split to lavender cock or cockerel for your pullets, lav×lav too many gens causes problems with feathering and I've heard with health too.

Lav×blue will give you resessive lav and blues. I wouldn't make this cross as lavender is supposed to be 1 consistent color throughtout and the blue will just mess it up. But will make gorgeous eye candy.

 

[WVduckchick]

Typed a big response which somehow disappeared. :/

 

[WVduckchick]

I have been trying to find lavender orpingtons FOREVER. I have finally acquired two pullets, and since I have looked so hard for so long, I am looking in to breeding them. I am SO sorry if this has been asked before, but can someone explain to me the difference (genetically) between the blues and the self blues (lavenders)? Is it a dilution gene? Would I be better off getting a lavender rooster or a black rooster, and what is black split to lavender? What happens if I cross a lavender rooster over a blue hen? I have one GORGEOUS blue orpington hen, but she is very old. I am considering adding more blues to my flock though.

If you want to breed lavenders, don't mix blue. It's a totally separate color gene.

Each bird has 2 copies of a color gene. Lavenders have 2 copies of lavender. If they only have one copy, they look black, and are called a split to lavender. Breeding lav to lav always produces 100% lav. Breeding a split to lavender to a full lavender produces 50/50 lav/splits. The splits always look black, but they carry one copy of lav.

The use of black is to improve feathering. Lavender feathers tend to fray after several generations, so adding black helps improve that quality.

 

[kari_dawn]

Oh, I am certainly not trying to add blues into the mix. I understand the blue gene is a different gene all together, but didn't know how the lavender worked, which is why I asked for a comparison between the two, not saying that I was going to combine them! Sorry for the confusion!

So, I would probably be even better off getting a black split to lavender rooster for my pullets than getting a homozygous black rooster....Or getting a lavender rooster to produce 100% lavenders, and eventually getting a black split to lav to improve feather quality. Yes?

 

[bit o poultry19]

Oh, I am certainly not trying to add blues into the mix. I understand the blue gene is a different gene all together, but didn't know how the lavender worked, which is why I asked for a comparison between the two, not saying that I was going to combine them! Sorry for the confusion!

So, I would probably be even better off getting a black split to lavender rooster for my pullets than getting a homozygous black rooster....Or getting a lavender rooster to produce 100% lavenders, and eventually getting a black split to lav to improve feather quality. Yes?

I say get a black cock, you can breed the split boys back to the lavender hens. You can also cross the black split×black split and improve feather quality and type. Much better than getting lav×lav in my opinion.

 

[WVduckchick]

Sorry, I did misread.

I have a split hen, but several lav girls and my roosters are lav. That way, I get mostly lavs. If I happen to hatch a black chick, I know it's split from my one hen. I can use it for improvement later, if/when I need it. I'd start with a lav rooster and see how they look before throwing black in the mix. jmho.

 

[walkerman78]

I'm curious about my lav orpington chicks. I have 5 that will be one week old tomorrow. I have one that has white on its wing where they are beginning to feather out. Now the parent stock were beautiful birds, no white. Is this possible, does this mean something is not right with the breeding?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I'm curious about my lav orpington chicks. I have 5 that will be one week old tomorrow. I have one that has white on its wing where they are beginning to feather out. Now the parent stock were beautiful birds, no white. Is this possible, does this mean something is not right with the breeding?

Hi, welcome to BYC!

I wouldn't say there is something wrong with your breeding.... But even show quality parent stock would not produce 100% show quality chicks. I would probably not breed that one in the future. But also, Just like any other fault... it could be hiding in one of your mating birds and sometimes you have to do test mating to see who is throwing the fault, if it's important to you.

 

[walkerman78]

Hi, welcome to BYC! 

I wouldn't say there is something wrong with your breeding.... But even show quality parent stock would not produce 100% show quality chicks. I would probably not breed that one in the future. But also, Just like any other fault... it could be hiding in one of your mating birds and sometimes you have to do test mating to see who is throwing the fault, if it's important to you. 

Thank you for your response. I am completely new to lavender orpingtons. Looks like I have a lot to learn about how their genetics work. The color crossing back and forth is fascinating to me.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Thank you for your response. I am completely new to lavender orpingtons. Looks like I have a lot to learn about how their genetics work. The color crossing back and forth is fascinating to me.

For me it's a never ending learning process. And I am definitely no expert!

I was going to breed LO as my main DP breed but decided I didn't want to deal with the lav gene breeding back to black, as that's fairly long term and so you have to be committed. And my interest seems to change often. There are so many cool breeds! My LO girls are quite beautiful though.

And Lav chicks are so cute.