I hatched a Lavender a day early! I have several I could hatch SO EXCITED! I need some Lavenders
OK I also need some clarification please. This BACK TO BLACK thing.... can I just use lavender splits or do I need to keep just blacks too? Why are we going back to black.... I think it is for type improvement, but is there some other reason? Educate me before I get to deep and can't dig my way out.... I want to stop digging early
Right now I have blacks in the pens, I have one Split pullet that is laying well now and one Lavender pullet. I have several Splits growing up and in a few months can have a flock of just splits and Lavenders. Should I leave the blacks in? I don't currently have a black pen and really don't have the room for a just black pen, but I could work something out if I need a black pen to pull from. I just want to be clear on WHY....
If you are a member of the Ameraucana Club you should ask this question there. If not you can read about what is said there. This question keeps coming up because everyone wants to produce a lot of lavender colored birds but most of them do not meet the SOP's. Yes, most of the lavenders need to go back to PURE blacks that are excellent type to improve the lavenders. There is no easy fix. Some people have been working on them for over 5 years and they all keep going back to the blacks for improvement. The blacks only improve quality but does not improve the lavender color at all IMO. Once you have quality on the lavenders(which they are few and far) then one can just use lavender to lavender otherwise they might just be EE's and be considered hatchery stock. I cull my black splits so no one uses them on pure black stock but after selling them at the auction they seem to come back and haunt the hobby so now they never leave my premises alive, same with the cull lavenders. So there is no quick fix insight to produce quality hatching eggs so one needs to work on this project with some ethics.
