breeding chocolate and lavender

[Feathergardens]

I think I understand now. In appearance your hens will be chocolate. They will have the chocolate gene and will be based on black.

But I think the objection to calling them Chocolate Orpingtons is that they will not breed true if you try to cross them with their offspring or if you inbreed the offspring. They have one copy of the recessive Lavender gene and will pass that down to some of their offspring. Chocolate is also a recessive gene. In future generations you will get some black chickens, some chocolate, and some lavender. You would not have this problem if you had used a black rooster instead of lavender.

Maybe Wappoke knows, I don’t, what will happen to the offspring that wind up both pure for chocolate and pure for lavender. They are both modifiers of black but I don’t know how they will look together. According to the calculator it looks like lavender trumps chocolate but I’m not sure that will actually happen. It could easily turn out to be a different shade than either.

This is exactly my question. I am in the second year of this project and starting the 3rd. Chicks have not matured from the splits crossing, but appear to be either chocolate, lavender, or black. Although the lavender and chocolate chick fown has a lot more variationthan than the parent stock, I am waiting for their adult molt to see if the colors vary as much as the chick down. First molt they appear to be feathering out the same colors rather than keeping their lighter and darker chick down and all to be one of the 3 colors. It will take some time to sort out who has inherited the lavender gene and who has not.