Colour/Genetic confusion

[TwistedFeathers]

Hi all.

I live in New Zealand, and have just finished my first breeding season. Going into winter here atm.

Have been doing heaps of research online to try find out as much as possible, and talking to other breeders ect.
I have hit a weird brick wall with a couple of breeders here, and their opinion on how some of the colour genetics work. Apparently here in NZ our genetics work different to everyone elses, and i can't apply genetic info/anything at all, that i learned from you good and very experienced people in the states.
However, upon my floating around, i have come to the conclusion that most breeders here have no idea about even the basic genetic stuff, like the bases the colours are all built on, extended black, birchen, wild type ect

But my main point of confusion at the moment, is in regard to lavender. I have come across a breeder that says her black birds she is breeding came about as a sport from her lavs when she used to breed those, and she only had lav birds, she wasn't breeding back to black.
To the extent of my knowledge, it should be impossible for two lav birds to breed a black shouldn't it? That's like breeding two splash birds and saying, i got a black bird.
Yet breeders here say that this often happens. I had never heard of it until recently, but it's got me really confused.
I tried asking them to explain how it happens, but they couldn't/wouldn't.

Can anyone help me out here? I'm getting really confused, and am trying to work out if despite all i have managed to dig up, these black sports from lavender birds can happen.

Cheers

 

[Kev]

Haha, that is a common thing unfortunately- stubborn, willful ignorance. There are certain poultry groups/kinds of people I won't even try talking color genetics to because they are just SO SURE and become very angry if you just try to explain......

It is impossible for a black to happen out of recessive lavenders. End of story.

The other problem is with nomenclature in the hobby. Different names for the same genotype, same names for different genotypes, and so on. Crele(my own pet peeve), chocolate, partridge etc. And there are some just trying to make up their own name for what they perceive to be a different or something they think is of their own creation.

It so happens there is some confusion with lavender- some people call it self blue, some people will call a evenly colored and lighter blue a lavender.

So either, the person was mistaken on paternity of the blacks or the name.

This reminds me of long ago, when the only Marans in USA were clean legged cuckoo. This person sold several Marans with multiple mutations- they had feather legs, buff wash through their bodies, and pea combs. This person swore up and down his marans were separated for three months when they produced those chicks. Guess what else the person had? Buff brahmas. Yet there was just no getting through to that person the birds were in fact Marans- buff brahma crosses.... instead, he had himself convinced the pea combs were new mutations and so was the buff wash and Marans historically had feather legs- because hey, mutations and throwbacks happen!

 

[TwistedFeathers]

Boy is it frustrating lol

I am breeding Araucanas, which here in NZ and Aussie follow the british standard, which has a tailed, muffed version with a crest. They look VERY similar to the Ameraucana, with a crest. The allowable colours follow the OEG colours, so anything OEG goes

That's what i found when i was trying to work out how they thought a black can come from two lavs. They got shitty, kept talking over me, and weren't interested in hearing anything but what THEY were saying. And another breeder then tried to tell me about the best way to breed a splash, i got confused listening to her, she reckoned you put a splash to a lav, then crossed the blue with something else, there was another cross to something, then you got a splash.
She had no idea what she was talking about. For a start, the main rule i have come across is to NEVER mix blue with lav.

And yup, i hear ya with the creation thing. I have to bite my tongue so much, as there a couple of breeders here of my breed that have what they are calling lemon blues. They are NOT a true lemon blue, which from my researching comes from crossing a blue cock to a brown red hen.
Instead these lemon blues are blues with gold leakage, that is the silvery gold colour that comes from the bird having a dose of gold and a dose of silver. I had a cockerel like that, but oh no, he wasn't a 'lemon blue' cuz i had figured out how they were doing it. Granted, they are pretty birds, but it irks me lol.

There was another thing a while back that got my goat a bit too, there was a huge discussion about the paint silkies in the states, and people wanting them ect. Then some 'experienced breeder' crossed a white leghorn to a silkie, and decided cuz the resulting cross was white with black spots, it was a paint, and they were going to have paint silkies before long. That made me bang my head against the wall.
It will be leaky dominant white from the leghorn, not the paint gene. But i couldn't say anyhting, cuz they didn't want to hear they were wrong lol
It really bugs me when people like that, who call themselves great breeders, try and talk up their genetics ect when it is clear they don't know poultry genetics from their butt, and make no effort to learn. They then spout off their nonsense to newbies, who unless they are as fanatical about research as me, take it as gospel cuz it comes from an 'experienced breeder'
I am no expert, but i have done lots of research, and have, i would like to think, a good grasp of the very basics.

Yes, i think that is the problem, one of the people i was talking to think that the self blue and lav are two totally diff things that look the same, and our 'lav' is a poor copy of the 'self blue' that everywhere else has.
Apparently we also don't have proper blue in NZ, i's something else. Pfft. The reason a lot of our blues(in some breeds) are so crap is cuz most people make no effort to get rid of red leakage, and pretty much every blue is based on gold, and is leaky, and rusty and has red everywhere.

Haha omg that happens here so much.

Sorry for the vent above to readers, it's been building up for a while, and i haven't found anyone here i can really talk/rant to, that actually understands.