Thanks so much for the help! Sounds like it won't be bad, and sex-linked too! As for the "splash", I'm kind of a newbie with all the colors, and might be using splash wrong, but he has pale gray coloring with "splashes"? of darker bluish gray. I thought he was white originally, then when he feathered out, turned pale gray on the head. Now, developing more of what I may be mistakenly calling "splash". I'll post a pic if I can get some to download.
Okay, that sounds like splash. Here's an essay on genetics because I'm trying to put off some work.
BBS
Splash is co-dominant with black, and it's basically a mutated black gene. A chicken can have a copy of splash and a copy of black (blue) or have two copies of black (black) or have two copies of splash (splash, or "true-blue"). Blue, Black, and Splash chickens are commonly raised and bred together, which is why you'll sometimes see eggs advertised as BBS (Blue/Black/Splash.)
Lavender
Lavender, or "self-blue" is a recessive gene that dilutes black. Unlike splash, it
isn't a mutation of black. That means that an individual chicken can have two copies of black and two copies of Lavender. Lavender is recessive, so a chicken needs two copies of lavender to be lavender.
Sex-links work like so:
Rooster carries two "W" Chromosomes. Only W chromosomes can carry barring, gold/silver, chocolate, etc. Having two W's makes him a boy.
Hen carries "W" and "Z" (only one of each.) Z does not carry barring, gold/silver, or chocolate. The Z makes her a girl.
A chicken passes on one chromosome to each of its offspring. The Rooster passes W's by necessity, but a hen can pass a W or a Z, making her chicks little cockerels or pullets.
The rooster carries two W's that don't have barring. (W^b, W^b) The pullets and the cockerels inherit one of the W^b's from him. Because neither this W^b nor the Z contains barring, the girls are not barred.
Mum carries barring (W^B, Z). She passes a W^B onto half of her offspring. which must, by necessity, be cockerels because they have two W's (one from dad). That W she passed contained barring, and so the chicks are barred (W^B, W^b) They are single factor barred, though, because they only have one copy of barring. They're darker-colored than roosters that have two copies (double factor.)
Lavender vs Blue vs splash
Lavender often has a yellow tint, and it's pale the whole way up to the head.
Blue has a lot of varying shades, ranging from light to very dark (almost midnight), but the neck is darker than the body.
Splash is basically pretty pale, though the appearance can vary a lot. I have a splash who looks almost white, and I would have assumed she was cream with a few dark feathers except for the chicks she kept hatching. I've seen some online that look like paintings.
