Telling blue from lavender and olandsk dwarf chickens

[ChicksnMore]

I was given some birds recently that I was told were lavender by someone I trust to know their colors. I'm totally new to the lavender color. I do know the birds breed true. I also know that these birds do have some darker greys and reds showing and I just finished reading that if it breeds true its lavender and blues do not breed true, if its lavender it will show no reds, and poultrykeeper.com had an article saying that Blue-Silver and Coronation Wyandottes are blues that breed true. I couldn't find a lot of information on those birds either but am confused and want to learn more.

I'd love to hear from people about their experiences with blues and lavenders. How do you tell blues from lavender? Can blue breed true? Can lavender express red or charcoal? Is there a favorite source for color genetics in chickens?

The chickens I got are Olansk Dwarfs and I can't find any pictures of lavender or blue in that breed, although I do know lavenders were imported here a while back. My friend I got these from passed away and willed me these birds so I can't talk to her to find out more or explore thoughts on blue versus lavender. I do know she was an avid chicken fancier who bred with care and kept her dwarfs separated by color type. I also know that she bred these for years and that she had some birds from the original importers. Although I don't know which birds of which color. Theres not a lot of good information out there on this breed. If anyone knows of any good resources on them, especially on the color genetics for dwarfs, I'd sure love to have it. Does anyone have pictures of lavender dwarfs?
I'm in love with these birds and want to keep them around for my pleasure, regardless of color...but I'm very curious now. She was my go-to chicken lady for all my questions for years and years.

 

[nicalandia]

Regular colored Olansk Dwarfs

Lavender diluted Mottled on a red/gold background (AKA Porcelain pattern)

Blue diluted Millie Fleur pattern

 

[NatJ]

Ok...I think I get it. So splash bred to blue gives 50% blue and 50% splash. So with the dwarfs being splash, all the breedings are splash bred to blue so it appears to breed true though it's not actually true?

Something like that, yes.

The blue gene is incompletey dominant, and it affects black but mostly not red/gold colors.
So one copy of the blue gene turns black into blue.
Two copies of the blue gene turns black into splash.
Splash can breed true, because they are pure for the blue gene.
Black can breed true, because they are pure for the not-blue gene.
But a blue chicken has one copy of blue and one of not-blue, so it can pass either one to its chicks.

(Note, when I was saying "black," I meant not-blue. There are lots of other genes that cause or affect black on a chicken, and it can get horribly confusing! So in this context, a "black" chicken might be black all over, or it might have black lacing on a gold or silver background, or it might be Mille Fleur colored, or it might just have a black tail on an otherwise red chicken. Each of those chickens could have the black turned into blue or splash.)

I'll have to read about the splash and mille fleur genes too since all the birds are splash regardless of base colors. Hmm...and I should probably read how blue works in those d'uccles.

These all have some all white feathers, some all black or blue feathers, some white tipped feathers and some black or blue tipped feathers and then a basic color besides that...all on one bird. I think...lol. I better go take another closer look at the birds to figure out what all I'm seeing so I know what I need to try to learn about.

I think they all have the mottling gene, but only some have splash (two copies of the blue gene.)

Mottling is recessive, so it's easy to have a flock where all birds show the effect of that gene.

The mottling gene causes a white tip on each feather, then a black portion of the feather, and then the color of the rest of the feather is determined by whatever other genes the chicken has. (And then some feathers fail to follow that pattern, just to keep us guessing.)

So if you start with an all-black chicken and add mottling, you get white tips on the feathers, and then the black portion looks just like the black on the rest of the feathers. Chickens that look like that get called "mottled." But if you start with a Buff Columbian chicken (mostly gold, with black on the neck and tail), mottling will make the white tips, and the black sections, and then leave gold on the rest of each feather-- making it a Mille Fleur chicken.

On a Mille Fleur, the black part of the feathers can be affected by any gene that affects black. So adding the blue gene makes a Blue Mille Fleur, or adding the Dominant White gene makes a color called Golden Neck (turns the black to white.)

The gold part of the feathers can be affected by any gene that affects gold. You can have a Silver Mille Fleur (white instead of gold), or darker or lighter shades of gold (Speckled Sussex have mottling like Mille Fleurs do, but have a dark red instead of gold, along with a few other genetic differences.)

And a Mille Fleur can have genes that affect both black and gold, like the lavender gene (which makes it into a Porcelain.)

My first batch of blue babies just hatched but all I can tell at this point is that they're all chipmunky babies.

They sound really cute. I love chicks with chipmunk stripes!

 

[ChicksnMore]

Thank you for the easy to understand reply!

I think you're right that they're all mottled with only some carrying splash. Splash is black feathers scattered here and there or can other colors splash? When I went out and looked closer, all the birds have the white tip with black and base color like you described and only some have the all black feathers scattered here and there.

Dominant white must be in there somewhere to as some of the birds have heavily white heads and chests?

...like this little guy. This is the same baby I posted pics of already...just a little older. His chest is almost all white now and it looks like his head will be white with a few orange feathers and a sprinkling of blue.

I've been reading some genetic sites recommended in other posts and was amazed to see how complex chicken genetics are. At this point I'm definitely struggling to remember it all, let alone understand it all and how it ties to my birds.

 

[NatJ]

and poultrykeeper.com had an article saying that Blue-Silver and Coronation Wyandottes are blues that breed true. I couldn't find a lot of information on those birds either but am confused

When the lavender gene was discovered, it took people a while to decide what to call it, and how to tell it apart from blue. At one point, people were calling them "self-blue" and "Andalusian blue." The "self-blue" was the one that bred true (what we're now calling lavender.) The "Andalusian blue" was the one found in the Andalusian breed of chicken, that does not breed true, (that we can just call "blue," now that the other one is called lavender.)

Coronation Sussex have lavender, not blue. Coronation Wyandottes would probably be the same.

Blue-Silver is not one I'm familiar with, but it would need to either have lavender (breeds true) or blue (does not breed true.)

 

[ChicksnMore]

When the lavender gene was discovered, it took people a while to decide what to call it, and how to tell it apart from blue. At one point, people were calling them "self-blue" and "Andalusian blue." The "self-blue" was the one that bred true (what we're now calling lavender.) The "Andalusian blue" was the one found in the Andalusian breed of chicken, that does not breed true, (that we can just call "blue," now that the other one is called lavender.)

Coronation Sussex have lavender, not blue. Coronation Wyandottes would probably be the same.

Blue-Silver is not one I'm familiar with, but it would need to either have lavender (breeds true) or blue (does not breed true.)

I did some more reading and came across a post on here saying the coronation Wyandotte are lavender, so I went back to the poultrykeeper article and re-read it. I mis-read it the first time...they were actually saying that blues valued in some birds because it doesn't wash out the reds but lavender is perfect in birds like the those two. They went from talking blues to lavender without re-saying lavender and I must of been reading too fast....lol. I wonder if it's possible for birds to carry or show both colors and what that'd look like.

 

[NatJ]

I wonder if it's possible for birds to carry or show both colors

Yes

and what that'd look like.

I'm guessing they would look about like lavender, but I don't know for sure.

 

[NatJ]

I think you're right that they're all mottled with only some carrying splash. Splash is black feathers scattered here and there or can other colors splash?

Splash is only black feathers (except that they can be a diluted form of black, so blue or chocolate or lavender; but no red/gold shades)

Dominant white must be in there somewhere to as some of the birds have heavily white heads and chests?View attachment 3017959

I don't think that one has Dominant White.

Dominant White turns black into white, all over the chicken. Since I see black in the wing feathers, I don't think that one has Dominant White.

I think the mostly-white head is just the effect of the mottling gene-- it seems to happen on some chickens but not others, but I've see it on a few chickens and in photos of more chickens, where mottling was the only reasonable explanation.

I've been reading some genetic sites recommended in other posts and was amazed to see how complex chicken genetics are. At this point I'm definitely struggling to remember it all, let alone understand it all and how it ties to my birds.

Yes, it definitely is complicated!

I find this gene table useful when I just need a reminder of what a particular gene does:
http://kippenjungle.nl/sellers/page3.html

There are a bunch of things I sort-of know, but I keep needing to re-check some of the details

 

[ChicksnMore]

Thanks for the link!

So I was reading about dominant white and recessive white last night and if I understand correctly, if it was dominant white there would be some birds that carry 2 genes and end up all white right? If so then yep, couldn't be dominant white. Then I also read about leaky white in dominant white creating marked birds (still trying to find out what leaky white looks like and if recessive can be leaky) and that recessive white in chickens is like recessive white in ducks and masks all colors and about dominant white bred to dominant black can end up blue? That sounds like it'd be a different blue from splash bred blue cause different genes involved? Or does that pairing create a blue bird with splash?...or or...?

Color me confused....lol.

What I really need is a good book or two. Was looking at "Genetics of Chicken Colors" and trying to decide if it's worth the high price. It'd definitely help to have one solid source that can answer all or most of my questions.

At least I know the visual difference between splash and mottled now, and blue and lavender ... and at least I'm pretty sure that the main gene that's creating the look I love is the mottling gene. What it means in breeding will take me longer to fully understand.

I kinda want to throw all the birds together and just let them do their thing, but at the same time, her birds are so versatile in colors yet very uniform at the same time. They're beautiful to me and I'd hate to lose that because I don't know what I'm doing. I don't really care about improving them at this point...I just don't want to destroy what she had going.

I don't have any of her breeding records though her kids keeping and eye out for them and will pass them along if she notices them. I don't even know the meanings of her marking system. I know that one set designates the color category and that one's easy to see.

One of her breeding sets for this year has a rooster and hen that looks very strongly milli fleur with minimal spotting and penciling (think the veining in the feathers is called penciling or is it partridge?) and a hen that has the same colors and markings but with the heavier markings that the other birds have... and I have no idea why she combined these three. I'm guessing it was about keeping the orange base color and increasing the mottling so I'll continue them with that thought in mind.

One of the things I love about these birds is how they change over time. I loved seeing the changes in them when I visited. They start out as very typical little fuzz balls, then get very wild looking barred feathers, then the barring disappears and they get darker with colors and adult feather pattern coming in, then they start getting more and more white over time but never lose the blacks and base colors. If I understand correctly that's a milli fleur trait...so a mottling trait?

I'm having a ton of fun learning all this though! Thank you so much for all the info...you may feel it's a sorta-know, but it's very very helpful.

 

[NatJ]

So I was reading about dominant white and recessive white last night and if I understand correctly, if it was dominant white there would be some birds that carry 2 genes and end up all white right? If so then yep, couldn't be dominant white. Then I also read about leaky white in dominant white creating marked birds (still trying to find out what leaky white looks like and if recessive can be leaky) and that recessive white in chickens is like recessive white in ducks and masks all colors and about dominant white bred to dominant black can end up blue? That sounds like it'd be a different blue from splash bred blue cause different genes involved? Or does that pairing create a blue bird with splash?...or or...?

Um, not quite.

Recessive white is the easiest to understand. Two copies of the recessive white gene make a completely white bird. It does not have leakage of other colors in the feathers. A chicken with one copy of the recessive white gene looks just like a chicken with no copies of it: they show no effects at all.

Breeding splash with black makes blue. Breeding Dominant White with black does NOT make blue. But if someone has a "white laced red" chicken, they may not know whether that "white" is actually Dominant White or Splash. So they can breed that "white laced red" chicken to a chicken with black lacing and get blue lacing (if it was really splash). Or they can get white lacing (if it was really Dominant White.) Or they can possibly get some of each, if the chicken had both Dominant White AND Splash.

Dominant White affects black, but not red. (Two copies may have some effect on red shades, but may not-- I've found conflicting reports on that.) When you have a bird that has the genes to be solid black, but it also has Dominant White, you get a white chicken. If the chicken has only one copy of Dominant White, there may be some leakage (bits of black showing in places. That is sometimes called Paint, and can also look a bit like a Splash chicken.) When a chicken has two copies of Dominant White, it tends to have no black at all-- all black is changed to white.

But Dominant White can only make a chicken "all white" if it would otherwise be all black. When a chicken has the genes for a pattern of black and gold, Dominant White leaves the gold alone and only affects the black.

Examples:
Rhode Island Reds are red with black tails. ISA Brown sexlinks are red with white tails, because they have Dominant White.
White Laced Red Cornish and White Laced Buff Polish both have white lacing (Dominant White) on a chicken that is otherwise red or gold.
Golden Neck Old English Game Bantams have Dominant White (they would otherwise be Mille Fleur colored, but the black has been turned into white.)
Chamois Spitzhaubens have Dominant White (they would otherwise be gold with black spangles, but the black bits are turned into white.)
Black Breasted Red becomes Red Pyle when you add Dominant White.
And so, for quite a lot of varieties of various breeds.

Silver is another gene that makes white on a chicken. Specifically, it changes gold to white. (Gold meaning anything that is red or yellow, and most brown shades as well.) There are quite a lot of chicken varieties that come in a gold version and a silver version (Gold Laced/Silver Laced, Gold Spangled/Silver Spangled, Buff Columbian/Columbian, etc.)
If you cross a gold chicken with a silver one, the silver offspring tend to be rather yellowish, instead of having a nice clean white. It takes some combination of other genes to make the white nice and pretty (no, I don't know what genes.)
Note: unlike the other genes we've been talking about, Silver is on the Z sex chromosome, so it behaves differently in crosses depending on which parent is which color.

Have you played with the chicken calculator?
http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html
You can change genes in the dropdown boxes and watch how the picture changes.
(It can calculate offspring from various crosses, but I mostly play with the genes and look at the pictures.)

For the genes I've just been explaining, the symbols are:
Bl (Blue) or bl+ (not-blue)
C+ (allows color) or c (recessive white)
I (Dominant White, which Inhibits black) or i+ (not-Dominant-White)
S (Silver) or s+ (gold)

A capital letter indicates a Dominant gene, a lowercase letter is a recessive gene.
They mostly go in pairs with the same letter (exception: when there are three or more options, the abbreviations get more complicated.)
+ means it's the wild-type gene (found in the Red Jungle Fowl.)
The letter usually has something to do with either the name of the gene, or what it does. (Like S for Silver, or I for Inhibitor of black that we usually call Dominant White.)

What I really need is a good book or two. Was looking at "Genetics of Chicken Colors" and trying to decide if it's worth the high price. It'd definitely help to have one solid source that can answer all or most of my questions.

The prices do tend to be awful
The only chicken genetics book I've actually read is Genetics of the Fowl, by F.B. Hutt
It's available for free here:
https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/chla2837819
There's a link to "read item."
Only one chapter actually talks about color genetics, but that same information is mostly getting copied again into the newer books, so if you read it you've probably got half of what any newer book would have anyway.

The rest of what I know, I've picked up here and there, and I've forgotten some of the sources. There were some genetics experts on another forum some years back, and I learned a lot by reading their posts, but I don't think they're still posting.

At least I know the visual difference between splash and mottled now, and blue and lavender ... and at least I'm pretty sure that the main gene that's creating the look I love is the mottling gene. What it means in breeding will take me longer to fully understand.

You are making good progress! I started by learning about the specific genes I was most interested in, then branched out to learn a few more, and the number keeps growing over time.

One nice thing about mottling is that it breeds true because it's a recessive gene: if the mother and the father show mottling, so will all their chicks.*

*except if the chicks are all white, of course. You wouldn't see the mottling on an all-white chicken.

I'm having a ton of fun learning all this though! Thank you so much for all the info...you may feel it's a sorta-know, but it's very very helpful.

I use "sort-of know" for things that sound familiar when I read them, because I know I've read them before, but I have to look them up again to be sure about the details.

There are some things I do know without having to look them up (including most of what you've asked so far.) But sometimes I encounter a new detail that I never heard of before, so I know there are still things out there to learn.

I'm glad you're having fun! I also enjoy chicken genetics, but I've learned that not everyone does (I've got a few family members that are tired of hearing about it... )