Blue or Lavender Orpington? What are these markings?

[Criskin]

This hen hatched out of a batch of lavender Orpington eggs I ordered. At first I though she was just speckled with dark mud since part of the run had gotten wet but as she grows older I can tell that her feathers are interspersed with black flecks. They aren't very thick or very regular, however. Would this pattern be called mottled or is there another name? She's also fairly dark...would she be considered blue instead of lavender? The pictures don't quite show how dark the speckles are, but I've taken some:

Center:

On the left. You can see the markings I'm talking about on her neck/breast:

In the back:

 

[hdowden]

its really hard to tell. with blue's you have the blue coloring with lacing on all the feathers, lavender (self blue) coloring is the same shade all over. splash and moltted i would suspect there to be more white or black spots. sorry might not be much help but it also gives you a bump up....

 

[pips&peeps]

Looks blue to me.

 

[stephanie1992]

she looks lke her color got stuck between blue and splash lol. what ever color she is shes very pretty

 

[TedJan92_in_Idaho]

I ordered some Lavender eggs and got the same thing + yellow and black chicks. I culled the whole lot.

 

[hdowden]

depending on were the parents came from they could still be working on their blue strain. i'm looking for self blue d'uccles and if i cant find any i'm going to order some blacks and mottled blacks and do some back breeding, which means there will be black and mottled genes in their background for some time though which could be the case here. wouldnt cull them unless your using them for breeding even then you could still correct this. i am in the process of making 4 different pens. 1 for my mille, 1 for my porcelian, 1 for the self blue, and one for the ones i dont want to use in the breeding but want the eggs and there will be a few roos in there but for now i dont have to have those pens done till next summer.

 

[OSUman]

ITs blue because its two toned blue.

 

[Criskin]

Thanks for the input everyone! It kind of irritates me that out of two batches of Lavender Orp eggs from two different sources, I only have one truly Lavender Hen:

On the bright side, I only hatched one roo out of all of those eggs! I don't plan on breeding any time soon, if ever, and even then I wouldn't sell any of the offspring. I still wish I knew what that pattern, or lack thereof, is though!

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
She does not appear have any kind of a pattern in here. It is not unusual for blue birds to have some black in the feathers. The feather edging is due to the extended black gene- this is common blue females.

Lavender birds will have a white feather shaft facing out with a dark feather shaft facing in ( check the wings and tail feathers).

Blue birds will have a dark feather shaft facing out and a dark feather shaft facing in( check the wings and tail feathers) .

 

[Criskin]

Quote:
Great tip! Thank you!