breeding lavender orps to other color orps

[kelsey]

I have two lavender orp roosters. In the first pen there is the rooster, 2 black orp hens and 2 blue orp hens. In the second pen I have the rooster and 2 black orp hens. What colors will I get out of them, and is it ok to breed them to those colors. yesterday I purchased the black hens to breed with what I thought was a blue rooster but I found out this morning it was a hen when it laid an egg. The guy I brought them from said that breeding lavender to lavender is not good because they are not very healthy birds, but I'm not sure about that. Any help is appricated I'm new to this. Thanks in advance

 

[galanie]

Lavender to lavender, if it's not a good idea, would likely be because the "type" isn't good yet and needs improvement. If I had a bird of any color that wasn't healthy I wouldn't breed it at all to any color. Usually this is done by breeding lavender to blacks that you are sure have no lavender gene already present. A completely black looking bird can have an unexpressed lavender gene in there. Black and blue are different though. IF there's a blue gene present, it's blue. If two are present, it's splash. If none, it's black.

Some do cross lavenders with blues to improve type. Most use blacks. There was a raging discussion on here last week about that. Be aware that blue and lavender are completely different genes even though both seem to express a similar coloring.

PS - keep good records and you can breed any of yours to the lavenders. And if he thinks they would have unhealthy chicks if bred together, then they are too closely related in the first place.

 

[kelsey]

when you cross the lavender with the blue would you get half blue and half lavender? I have been looking for a lavender hem for a long time but havent had any luck yet. I'm hoping to eventually end up with a splash

 

[kelsey]

when you cross the lavender with the blue would you get half blue and half lavender? I have been looking for a lavender hem for a long time but havent had any luck yet. I'm hoping to eventually end up with a splash

 

[galanie]

Quote:
Breed two blues and a percent will be Splash. Breed a splash to a black and all offspring will be blue. Throw lavender in the mix and you'll be able to use the lavender/black tables plus the blue/black tables combined into one. In other words, you'll end up with a lot of birds with a lavender gene but they won't all be lavender. As I said, blue and lavender are completely different genes. I'm not well versed on lavender but I do know about blue. Basically lavender will never give you a splash, as splash is the presence of two blue genes

One blue gene = blue
two = splash

this is why a splash and a black will give you 100% blues. One has two copies, one has zero, so all the offspring will have one copy.

Lavender does not behave the same way.

Edit to add: With what you have, breed the lavender to the blues. Breed the blue offspring together or save out a blue roo for your blue hens (best way). The results of the son to the original blue hens and 25% will be blue, 25% splash, and 50% black, unless the blue you pick has the lavender recessive also. If so you could possibly get some lavenders as well, diluting the overall numbers of splash and blue you'll get. It's very possible to get splashes with what you have, just not the way you first envisioned. (edited once more for clarity)

 

[galanie]

I copied this from a text document I copied off this board a while back about blue/lavender genes. I cannot remember the user name of the original poster but he is very well versed on chicken color genetics. The topic was white but it has a lot about blue and lavender as well.

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Short answer:
blue is dominant to black.
black is dominant to lavender.
lavender covers blue. But lavender is recessive, see below.
black is dominant to white unless you have the so called dom.white
white covers every other color. But white is recessive, see below.

Long answer:
It depends.
If you cross lavender and white neither is dominant, the crosslings could be black for instance.
If you have a bird that is both lavender and white it will look white. White is the absence of color.
White is epistatic to (="covers") all colors.
If you have a bird that is both blue and chocolate the color will be a combination of both but also more diluted (the dilution adds up)
Lavender and blue do not add up. Lavender is epistatic to most black diluters unless they would be lighter than lavender (eg splash or dom.white).

In genetics, dominance applies to the forms of one gene eg blue (symbol Bl) and not-blue (bl+).
bl+ is the not-mutated form of the blue gene. Present in black chickens for instance.
It is written in lowercase to show that it is recessive (not dominant) and has a plus sign to say that it is wildtype/not mutated.
Bl is the mutation that made us aware that this gene exists and now has a mutated form.
It is written in Uppercase to show that it behaves dominant to the original gene.
Blue is a special case of dominance called incomplete dominance because 2 doses of blue would make an even more diluted color called splash.