Understanding the lavender gene

I am by no means an expert on genetics, but I think I have a fairly good understanding on how things work. Let's have a discussion to help clarify for others how the lavender (self blue) gene works. This refers to porcelain breeders as well.

From my understanding it goes something like this..in simple terms:

Lav to Lav produces all Lav offspring - thus the gene is set

Lav to Black produces all Black offspring carrying a Lav gene (black in visual color) - the gene is set. Breed these splits back to a lav bird and progeny will be lavender and split lavender.

Lav/Black split (black in color) to Lav/Black split (black in color) can produce Lav, split Lav/Black or Black chicks. Breed lavender offspring back to split parent and produce all lav chicks. You can also breed split offspring back to split parent and get some lavender chicks.

Lav/Black split (black in color) to Black will produce some split Lav/Black chicks (black in color) and some Black chicks. Breed the split offspring back to the split parent and you will produce lav chicks.

Ok, there is a start. Anyone want to add to this to help others understand how this gene works?

Jody

I don't know much about the self blue gene, but I have a friend who has millie fleur d'uccles and hatched out a porcelain chick from them somehow. The birds she got were from a reputable breeder and there has only been one chick like this out of many many hatches. So I am not sure where it came from but it did pop up. Anyone have ideas on how this could happen?

I am really interested in the lavendar gene. DW loves the color and I see some in my future someday.

Thanks for the info on this gene.

Ah, good question. We are working on Pyncheon here, which are typically mille fleur in color as well. If both mille fleur parents carry a lav gene, they will throw random porcelain progeny. They will also have straight mille fleur babies and split porcelain/mille fleur babies (looking mille fleur in color).

Yes, the lav gene can be present and well hidden until you breed.

sorry - edited for typos.

Jody

I'm really interested in this, too!! More, please?!

Ok that's interesting. Thanks. She said the rooster and the hen were hatched from eggs from two different breeders, so both must have picked up the gene and carried it hidden very well.

Here is a porcelain Pyncheon, for those not familiar with this color or the breed.



Jody

Quote:
My understanding of the gene is that breeding the split lav/black chicks back to lav would produce 50/50: with only half being lav, the other half being split lav/black.

And if I breed Lav to Mille Fleur... I get Black So my question is... how exactly does one get Porcelain??

I agree with LilPeeps. A black split to lavender, crossed with a visual lavender, will give each egg a fifty fifty chance of producing either a visual lavender or a black chick that carries the lavender gene. The only cross that will give you all lavender, is visual lavender to visual lavender. In this sort of program dealing with recessive genes it is not recommended to do crosses that produce "unknown splits" as in black split to lavender crossed with black split to lavender or straight blacks. It is best to cross every visual black that is known to carry the lavender gene back on a visual lavender bird, thus ensuring all of your stock is either a visual or a carrier. Producing "unknown splits" can produce a lot of birds that will never produce lavender, and will be a gigantic waste of time and money if someone buys them for the purpose of breeding lavenders.

mille fleur is a combination of buff, mottled and columbian genes, all recessive. A lavender bred to a mille fleur will produce a black, because a mille fleur does not have the lavender gene, and the lavender does not have the mottled, buff or columbian gene. That black bird, bred back to a mille fleur has a very slim chance of producing a mille fleur chick. It could happen, but probably wouldn't. It will take a couple of crosses back and forth to get a mille fleur out of a pure lavender. Now if the original mille fleur carried lavender, or one of the intermediate generations, you might get a porcelain mille fleur marked chick.