- Aug 22, 2010
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Blacks genetically cannot carry blue. Splash is pure for the gene blue is a carrier and black is complete lack of the blue gene.
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Blacks genetically cannot carry blue. Splash is pure for the gene blue is a carrier and black is complete lack of the blue gene.
Food for thought.If you can manage to wait 2 years to breed your birds your breed will be all the better for it. There is simply a major difference in MOST if not all breeds between a 6 month old bird and a 2 year old bird. I can understand not waiting if you only have one or 2 and you need to get chicks out as an insurance policy, fine, no problem. You often just don't know what you have if you breed young birds. Not to mention non standard attributes such as laying ability, broodiness, disease resistance, temperament , etc. . How can you tell what to breed for I'd you want to say select for or against broodiness and you only hatch from pullets? By using mature fowl for breeding, you automatically select for disease resistance, hardiness, and production over the long term. Which are the very characteristics most worth saving in the old breeds anyway, right?
Just curious, is there anyway to tell a really dark blue and black apart other than test breeding? Is the down underneath a different color or anything? I have a serama cockeral that I'm not sure which it is. It has the lacing you are talking about, and has had me really confused on color. The pic was taken indoors with a flash.It's been my understanding, and I am FAR from an expert, that in the blue family mating that the black, nor the white in the splash is dominant so when you cross them, the two colors mix and make gray (blue).
There is a difference also, between a blue-bred black bird and a purely black bird. The blue-bred black is not quite as remarkable as a pure black in that the green sheen is mostly absent. You get more of a white-ish sheen on the black hackles. You can take a blue-bred black out into the sun and you can see the lacing on the edges of the feathers if their parentage has good lacing. However, I did mate two blue-bred blacks together last year and the cockerel I still have from that mating has a nice green sheen to his feathers. I haven't really noticed whether the pullets do or not. Next time we have a nice sunny day, I'll check.