breeding ginetics

If you have a splash lav split silkie rooster with a blue lav spli silkie hen and a splash lav split silkie hen what are the chances of me getting lavender offspring and BBS offspring?

use the calculator

Well first I have to say, this is seriously not a good idea. BBS and Lavender combined can cause some serious identification issues. \\

You will get 25% blue offspring, 75% splash offspring. 25% of those offspring will be Lavender, however the offspring w/splash coloring may ruin it, and the blues you may easily mistake for Lavender or vice versa.

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I agree... I keep telling people the same thing. It is just asking for a headache.

So breeding a lav split that is splash in color to a lav split that is blue in color wont create lavender?

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OK, I think I figured out what you're asking. But first I want to share the proper way to describe visual and split in birds (well, as I learned it in cage birds...but the idea is the same with chickens...or at least, it SHOULD be). What you do is put what you SEE first, then the word SPLIT, then the things the bird carries but doesn't show. Sometimes the word SPLIT is substituted with a "/" but it's used the same. So here's how (the way I learned it) your question would be rephrased:

Splash split Lavender X Blue split Lavender

You would get 1/4 of the offspring being Lavender visually, and of that 1/4, half would be Blue and half would be Splash. Thus you'd get 1/8 Blue Lavender and 1/8 Splash Lavender. That's what they'd be genetically. What they'd look like, and how you'd tell a Blue Lavender from a Blue split Lavender (or a Splash Lavender from a Splash split Lavender) I have NO idea.

The remaining 3/4 of the birds would be a mix of Blue or Splash (in equal probabilities), and they'd be either split Lavender or not carry Lavender at all (2/3 probability being split Lavender, 1/3 probability not carrying Lavender at all). You won't be able to tell just by looking which are splits and which aren't.

In genetics, it's sometimes easier to determine percentages involving multiple traits independently first, rather than making a big huge Punnet square. For example, let's separate the Splash and Blue from the Lavender.

Splash X Blue = 50% Splash, 50% Blue

Black split Lavender X Black split Lavender = 25% Black, 50% Black split Lavender, 25% Lavender

To figure out the probability of two things happening simultaneously, you multiply the probabilities of each. So let's say you wanted to know the probability of getting a Blue Lavender. Blue is 50%, and Lavender is 25%. Multiply that together and you get 12.5% (or 1/8).

Like I said before, this is the probability information for genotypes from this cross. How you'll tell a Blue from a Blue Lavender I don't know (especially since Blue varies in depth of color anyway). This is why people frown upon combining Blue or Splash with Lavender -- not because you'll kill a chicken or something, but because you'll have a hard time knowing what you have just by looking at it. And that flies in the face of the point behind controlled breeding.

If you try it anyway, keep the birds for yourself and avoid confusion by not selling to another person unless you explain the genetic background of the breeding. Good luck.



~Chris


ETA

I just noticed that you mentioned two hens, the second being Splash split Lavender. So everything I mentioned above applied ONLY to the pair I mentioned above. For the pairing with the second hen, this is what happens:

Splash split Lavender X Splash split Lavender = 25% Splash, 50% Splash split Lavender, 25% Splash Lavender

If you are keeping eggs from each hen separate, that's the probabilities for each. If you're pooling them together, the math gets more complex. This is because you'd have to know how many eggs came from each hen, how many actually hatch, etc. If one hen has twice as many hatched offspring as the other, then for the whole group, that hen will have 2/3 of the offspring, so her probabilities would also account for 2/3 of the whole group. If both hens had an equal number of offspring, then you'd have to multiply the percentages for each hen by 1/2, and add together probabilities for like-genotypes from each to determine the probability for the group. So if Hen A has 1/8 Splash Lavender and Hen B has 1/4 Splash Lavender, you'd do this: A + B = (1/8 X 1/2) + (1/4 X 1/2) = 3/16 Splash Lavender. Again, that's only if each hen has the same number of offspring (multiplying by 1/2 means that each hen's offspring are 1/2 of the total....if one hen has 1/3 and the other 2/3 then you use those fractions...etc.).

I think I've already made it too difficult in trying to sort this out for you based on odds....especially considering you'll probably have to post pics here on the forum and ask people to help you determine which are Splash Lavender and which are Splash, and which are Blue Lavender and which are Blue. And when that happens, I can't help you at all.

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When you see pictures of "Lavender" you are seeing a bird who is genetically Black and has two copies of the Lavender gene. So it's really diluted-Black. When you have a Splash, you have two copies of the Andalusian Blue gene, which is like a double version of a different dilute (one copy = Blue, two copies = Splash).

When you look at Splash chickens, they vary a lot. Some are mostly white with some light blue-ish markings, some have more, some have blue-ish and black markings, some are blue-ish with markings that are just black, etc. I'm guessing that if you had a Splash Lavender, there won't be ANY black markings (any feathers could be as dark as Lavender but not darker, and could also range lighter all the way to white). So what it would look like is something that's possible without the Lavender gene at all -- an almost white bird with random markings that could be as dark as light gray, and could be as light as white. So...what's the point of that?

Then again, I am only guessing based on how the genes work, from what I've been learning, and not in a live animal.

How can you be sure that the splash is split to lavender unless one of the parents is lavender (lav/lav)?
Also that parent had to be blue underneath the lavender (or splash covering lavender).

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This is just what the person told me. I know everybody cant be trusted but they are a fellow BYCer and they have to have been doing this for a long time with the quality of their silkies so i trust them that they know what their talking about. I am just soooooo excited to get them!!!

I do not know why, but blue and lavender dilutions are not cumulative with each other. Birds who are both blue or splash and also lavender (NOT split to lavender) look more like blue or splash than like lavender. Chances are that if you don't have breeding records you would not know that they are also lavender. You can look at tail feather. If shafts are dark on the outer side, the bird has blue; if light, it may not have blue.

I've heard people say that you can tell by the background colour of the splash. That is simply not true. I've had splash birds with that lavender shaded background who are very definitely NOT lavender, and NOT split to lavender.