Lavender Orpington Thread

[OrpieLover31]

This question can get a little tricky because I live in the United States and Im not the best with the whole genetics thing. But I will not quit at anything and I looked up the WHOLE Lavender Orpington genetics and how to get them and was shocked when I FINALLY got the answer (which took me almost a hour)!!!!! So if you are trying to figure out how the Lavender Orpington was created I think I have the answer. OKAY, so first you have to get a Lavender Ameraucana and a Black Orpington. You breed those two together and take the offspring which are F-1's and look for the ones with single combs and you breed those together . Within a few generations you should be able to see more Orpington type IF you know what the standard is that you are breeding too. It will take YEARS before completely breed out the characteristics of the Ameraucanas.
And on the second question you asked, I think you should look online and see if there are any local farms or stores that sell Black Orpington's and Lavender Orpington's. But your best hope is looking on Ebay and see if there are any adds that will ship fertile or hatching eggs to Canada. There should be SOME adds that do! Hoped I helped

Sorry if there is any typo errors..

 

[Coupe]

I wish i had like 3 more coops , i want Black Orpingtons

 

[OrpieLover31]

I want some Black Orpington's too

...... I kinda want to crossbreed the Lavender And the Black Orps together to get better Bloodlines.... Im looking for some Black Orpington's on Craigslist... Not finding any there... I might have to get some off of Ebay. But im not a fan of the risk there is when you buy eggs off of there...

 

[Coupe]

Yeah i bought 24 eggs on ebay and only 6 hatched..and then one Died from meriks (sp?)
Is it possible for a chick to get meriks from an uncleaned egg? Iv never had meriks on my property before until i bought thoes eggs. that chick never had contact with my chickens either, never came out of my house.
Anyways iv always wanted to see what a Gold laced Lavender would look like lol.

 

[OrpieLover31]

Sometimes it is possible for a chick to get Mareks... A lot of people get their chicks treated for Mareks, so they dont get it... You might want to contact those people that you got the eggs from and ask them if they are having that problem... And I have ALWAYS wanted to see what a Golden Laced Lavender looks like.. LOL

 

[OrpieLover31]

A Lavender Laced Gold Orpington would be possible, but it would take several generations to perfect. Crossing a GL Orp over Lav hens would be the start to the project, you'd produce visibly Black chicks with varying degrees of gold leakage and possible incomplete lacing, all whom would be carrying the Lav gene recessively.

From there breed the F1 offspring together, this hopefully will produce some chicks that are (1) visibly Lavender and (2) more completely laced.

Here's where it gets kinda hinky- the Lav gene will dilute/modify Black in the bird, paling it to the silvery gray color we refer to as Lavender. However it will also dilute/modify the gold color throughout the birds plumage making it a much paler blonde-creamy gold. Lemme see if I can find a picture to reference...

Once you have something similar to the above color established you can outcross again to "regular" Gold Laced Orps to further improve lacing, type, etc. Crossing a Gold Laced Orp with the hypothesized Lavender Laced Gold Orp will produce all visibly Gold Laced Orps recessively carrying the Lav gene, breeding these offspring together will produce a percentage of Lav Laced Gold Orp offspring.

Lavender is a recessive gene so it takes 1 "copy" of the gene from each parent bird for it to be visibly present.

***ETA: I strongly suggest against using "American"/APA style Lavender Orpingtons for this project as most (if not all) of these birds lack good Orpington type IMO. You would only be taking multiple steps back by using birds of lower quality/type, you still want your Lavender Laced Golds to look like Orpingtons, right? The Imported English Lavenders are becoming more and more prevalent and would be the birds I would use if I were attempting this project.


I think I found something talking about how to get Gold laced Lavender Orpingtons....

 

[Coupe]

Oh wow!!! Thats awesome!! Altho it takes years, it would be fun to just mess around withit!! I wish someone had a finished bird to show lol Great find!!

 

[OrpieLover31]

IKR! I was just thinking that!! LOL!!! I might dink around with that in the future....

 

[annmichele]

Wow, I am so humbled by everyone's knowledge on the genetics!!! Bravo to you! I love learning more about how and why, so thank you!!!!!

Here are our other ladies having a treat the other day. I was wondering what would happen if I let Buddy, our baby Lavender Orp um....do his thing....with our other girls (Buff Orps, RIRs and ISA Browns) and hatch some of those. hmmmmm....

There is another breeder of Lavender, Black, Blue and Splash that I found if anyone wants to pm me. I'll give you their contact info.

Oh, here are the ladies:

 

[OrpieLover31]

Thank you

! If you let Buddy in with the other hens when he is about 3 months old or older he will at first be terrified of them! But it will only take a couple months for him to man up! When I first added mine they acted like little pullets! They refused to look any of the hens in the eye! But is wasn't until recently when they started doing their thing with them!!! But, yes he will in the end start "mating" with them...