Breeding for specific traits?

[Impatient]

I'm not sure where this goes, but I think this is the right forum place.
I've been interested in breeding my own line of chickens, not for show or anything, just to see if I can. My goal is to come up with an auto sexing lavender laced line that breeds true. I know that this is a hard endeavour and may not work just based on lavender genetics of being a double recessive. Anyhow, the breeds I've purchased to try this out with are Cream Crested Legbars (for auto sexing and control), Lavender Wayondottes (for general color), and a silver laced wayondotte/blue maran mixed female (for the lacing gene).

My basic plan is to start by crossing the legbars and lavenders AMD choosing the lightest chicks that appear to keep true to the autosexing. At the same time crossing the legbars and my laced girl and doing the same only looking for laced chicks that hold true to the auto sexing. Them raise those two lines independently until they're breeding fairly true, and then start crossing the two, looking for lacing and lavender that appear to stay autosexing, occasionally breeding back to the legbars to keep the auto sexing genetics and the lavenders to keep the color until I reach the point of a lavender laced auto sexing line. Opinions on if this will work or suggestions to achieve this goal?

 

[R2elk]

I'm not sure where this goes, but I think this is the right forum place.
I've been interested in breeding my own line of chickens, not for show or anything, just to see if I can. My goal is to come up with an auto sexing lavender laced line that breeds true. I know that this is a hard endeavour and may not work just based on lavender genetics of being a double recessive. Anyhow, the breeds I've purchased to try this out with are Cream Crested Legbars (for auto sexing and control), Lavender Wayondottes (for general color), and a silver laced wayondotte/blue maran mixed female (for the lacing gene).

My basic plan is to start by crossing the legbars and lavenders AMD choosing the lightest chicks that appear to keep true to the autosexing. At the same time crossing the legbars and my laced girl and doing the same only looking for laced chicks that hold true to the auto sexing. Them raise those two lines independently until they're breeding fairly true, and then start crossing the two, looking for lacing and lavender that appear to stay autosexing, occasionally breeding back to the legbars to keep the auto sexing genetics and the lavenders to keep the color until I reach the point of a lavender laced auto sexing line. Opinions on if this will work or suggestions to achieve this goal?

You may want to check these out.

 

[Impatient]

Damn! Wish I'd seen these before I ordered $300 of chicks from green fire...oh well lol, but that's kind of my goal, only.lacing instead of barring, which is why Idk if my idea will even work

 

[R2elk]

Damn! Wish I'd seen these before I ordered $300 of chicks from green fire...oh well lol, but that's kind of my goal, only.lacing instead of barring, which is why Idk if my idea will even work

I may be wrong but believe that you need the barring for the auto sexing to work.

 

[Impatient]

Hence why I'm not sure if my idea is possible. Only one way to find out! I do know someone on here managed to breed a pencil laced Plymouth barred that bred true, might be something for me to think about..

 

[X_and_Z]

I agree with R2elk that the Opal Legbars should be of interest.

As for your plan - the barring is what allows auto-sexing breeds to be auto-sexing. It would seem that barring + lacing would negate that effect.

A couple articles about auto-sexing:
https://poultrykeeper.com/poultry-breeding/autosexing-poultry/
http://www.hobbypoultry.com/the-barred-gene-use-in-chickens/

 

[Impatient]

I figure at worst I can breed for birds similar to what you shared by adding in the lavenders, though the eggs will probably turn mint instead.of staying blue, which I'm fine with

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Barring is for sex linked not auto sexing.

I have seen sex linked lav's on here... Don't know about the lacing though.

Good luck, I just love an adventure!

 

[X_and_Z]

Barring is for sex linked not auto sexing.

It's actually used for both.

Here is yet another link on auto-sexing:
https://greenfirefarms.com/auto-sexing-chicken-breeds.html
Excerpt
"Punnett hypothesized that the gene for barred color patterns acted differently in male and female chicks. The males received two barred genes and the females only one, so male chicks would be lighter in color and more barred than the females. He experimented and found that by crossing brown colored males with barred silver females (he favored the Plymouth Rock to supply the barring gene), the effect was accentuated, and chicks could be easily visually sexed by their color and down patterns on the day they hatched. Females tended to have clearly defined “chipmunk stripes” on their backs and males tended to have a silver sheen on their down with a light spot on the backs of their heads.

As his first “proof of concept” experiment, Punnett was able to cross a Campine rooster with a barred Plymouth Rock hen and produce a chick that was visually sexable immediately after hatching. Male chicks had the telltale white spot behind their heads and female chicks had well-defined stripes in the down on their backs. These powerful visual cues for the first time in history made sexing chicks a simple task. Punnett’s new creation, dubbed the Cambar, was shown for the first time at the 1930 World’s Poultry Congress at the Crystal Palace in London. The Cambar was the first intentionally created auto-sexing breed of chicken. It was nothing less than revolutionary."

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Went a fun genetic journey on the internet...

Learn something new everyday.