English Orpington BBS and Laced genetics questions

[Egzermalda]

I am getting my first rooster tomorrow. He is a Black Laced Silver English Orpington. He will be covering all the following hens. 3 X Black Laced Silver Orpingtons, 2 X Splash English Orpingtons, 1 Blue (with black lacing, more on this later) English Orpington and 1 Golden Comet. The Blue and Splash hens are of the BBS type colors.

1) I plan to sneak a few of the Golden Comet's eggs under an Orp, just for fun and to see what happens. I know just about anything could happen, but does anyone want to guess?

2) I assume the Black laced silvers should all breed true??? If not, what can I expect?

3) What can I expect from the Splash hen?? Will the splash color affect the black lacing and I will get blue or splash laced chicks? Or no lacing at all in F1? The splash hen has no visible lacing like the blue one does, even though they are both BBS.

4) The Blue hen is heavily black laced. She has a fairly dark blue base. She is not a "Laced" breed, she is just laced like many Blue birds of BBS coloring often are. Is her lacing the same genetically as the Black Laced Silvers? And will she therefore give Black Laced chicks? Will the base colors of the chicks be silver? blue? light blue? A mixture of BBS? I thought to maintain lacing you needed double recessive lacing genes? But does the lacing one sees in Blues the same genetics as the lacing seen in a Black Laced Silver (or gold)?

5) There is a LOT more info about Black Laced Gold and Silver Wyandotte's out there. Do the color genetics work the same way in Orpingtons? I know the BBS works the same way in many breeds.

6) My goal is to breed both the Silver Laced and BBS with just one rooster, if that is possible. I chose the Silver Laced roo because I thought keeping the lacing would be more important than keeping the BBS clean. I actually prefer the splash for myself, but I think the Laced will be more desirable for selling and I would prefer not to have to have some all black chicks here in the desert. And I assume I will get some Blue Lacing out of this mash-up, if not in F1 maybe F2? Which would be interesting. And yes, I realize that in a few months I might have roosters coming out of my ears, LOL.

7) That Splash hen has some semi-frizzly tail feathers, is that normal? Undesirable?

Fluffy Butt Pics for fun,

Thanks for any input!

 

[Amer]

1) I plan to sneak a few of the Golden Comet's eggs under an Orp, just for fun and to see what happens. I know just about anything could happen, but does anyone want to guess?
Silver/gold heterozygous (read: yellowish) semilaced males, some with red, some with white. Same with females but hemizygous for silver (read: not yellowish)
2) I assume the Black laced silvers should all breed true??? If not, what can I expect?
Yes
3) What can I expect from the Splash hen?? Will the splash color affect the black lacing and I will get blue or splash laced chicks? Or no lacing at all in F1? The splash hen has no visible lacing like the blue one does, even though they are both BBS.
You will get blue chicks with silver leakage that is shaped like lacing.
4) The Blue hen is heavily black laced. She has a fairly dark blue base. She is not a "Laced" breed, she is just laced like many Blue birds of BBS coloring often are. Is her lacing the same genetically as the Black Laced Silvers? And will she therefore give Black Laced chicks? Will the base colors of the chicks be silver? blue? light blue? A mixture of BBS? I thought to maintain lacing you needed double recessive lacing genes? But does the lacing one sees in Blues the same genetics as the lacing seen in a Black Laced Silver (or gold)?
Your hen is well laced for a blue so it’s possible she’s a rare genetically laced blue, but I’m not sure. Most blues are just black based with blue and a melanizer but laced blues also have the pattern gene.
Silver laced Orpingtons have e^b/e^bCo/CoMl/MlPg/PgS/S for a genotype.
I suspect the chicks will be black and blue laced with some silver leakage.
5) There is a LOT more info about Black Laced Gold and Silver Wyandotte's out there. Do the color genetics work the same way in Orpingtons? I know the BBS works the same way in many breeds.
Orpington Lacing is the same genotype as Wyandotte lacing.

 

[Egzermalda]

1) I plan to sneak a few of the Golden Comet's eggs under an Orp, just for fun and to see what happens. I know just about anything could happen, but does anyone want to guess?
Silver/gold heterozygous (read: yellowish) semilaced males, some with red, some with white. Same with females but hemizygous for silver (read: not yellowish)
2) I assume the Black laced silvers should all breed true??? If not, what can I expect?
Yes
3) What can I expect from the Splash hen?? Will the splash color affect the black lacing and I will get blue or splash laced chicks? Or no lacing at all in F1? The splash hen has no visible lacing like the blue one does, even though they are both BBS.
You will get blue chicks with silver leakage that is shaped like lacing.
4) The Blue hen is heavily black laced. She has a fairly dark blue base. She is not a "Laced" breed, she is just laced like many Blue birds of BBS coloring often are. Is her lacing the same genetically as the Black Laced Silvers? And will she therefore give Black Laced chicks? Will the base colors of the chicks be silver? blue? light blue? A mixture of BBS? I thought to maintain lacing you needed double recessive lacing genes? But does the lacing one sees in Blues the same genetics as the lacing seen in a Black Laced Silver (or gold)?
Your hen is well laced for a blue so it’s possible she’s a rare genetically laced blue, but I’m not sure. Most blues are just black based with blue and a melanizer but laced blues also have the pattern gene.
Silver laced Orpingtons have e^b/e^bCo/CoMl/MlPg/PgS/S for a genotype.
I suspect the chicks will be black and blue laced with some silver leakage.
5) There is a LOT more info about Black Laced Gold and Silver Wyandotte's out there. Do the color genetics work the same way in Orpingtons? I know the BBS works the same way in many breeds.
Orpington Lacing is the same genotype as Wyandotte lacing.

Cool! Thank you for being so prompt and thorough in your responses. I can't wait to see the chicks! I might sell most of the pure Silver Laced and play with the BBS X Laced some more, they sound like they will be very pretty if not a standardized color.
One more question. Are there concerns with egg fertility with these English Orpingtons being such fluffy butts? They are huge, not very athletic birds with mega-feathers in the way of the important bits. It seems like there could be mechanical problems? Although the breeder I am getting them from seems to be producing plenty. I'll talk to her about it.

 

[SourRoses]

7) That Splash hen has some semi-frizzly tail feathers, is that normal? Undesirable?

Congrats! EOs are so awesome!

On #7, She's not Splash, she's Lavender Mottled. The feather shredding gene is responsible for her saddle and tail feather quality.
Since you're not breeding for Lavender, her offspring may not show it, but it's important to be careful about. It's hard to breed out.

 

[Egzermalda]

Congrats! EOs are so awesome!

On #7, She's not Splash, she's Lavender Mottled. The feather shredding gene is responsible for her saddle and tail feather quality.
Since you're not breeding for Lavender, her offspring may not show it, but it's important to be careful about. It's hard to breed out.

OH! That makes sense. The breeder did have some lavender mottled too but this one was in the pen with a bunch of splash and was sold to me as splash. I didn't want lavender because I knew about their feather problems and I knew they confuse the BBS genetics. It never occurred to me she wasn't splash although she did stand out in the pen a bit because she was slightly darker with more contrast in her colors. Hmm. The breeder is delivering the SL roo and 2 SL hens and a splash hen tomorrow. I may have to think about having her take back the Lavender mottled. But she is my favorite and now I have had her for ~2 months.

 

[SourRoses]

OH! That makes sense. The breeder did have some lavender mottled too but this one was in the pen with a bunch of splash and was sold to me as splash. I didn't want lavender because I knew about their feather problems and I knew they confuse the BBS genetics. It never occurred to me she wasn't splash although she did stand out in the pen a bit because she was slightly darker with more contrast in her colors. Hmm. The breeder is delivering the SL roo and 2 SL hens and a splash hen tomorrow. I may have to think about having her take back the Lavender mottled. But she is my favorite and now I have had her for ~2 months.

If I were you, I wouldn't give up any hens I felt connected to.
Keeping chickens is supposed to be fun, it's not fun if you're hurting yourself.

You could use her in breeding if you're careful to mark and assess her chicks, since you don't have a Lav roo the chicks will be BBS (unless the roo is split Lav, I would double check).
You could also identify her eggs and just not hatch from her.

 

[Amer]

Cool! Thank you for being so prompt and thorough in your responses. I can't wait to see the chicks! I might sell most of the pure Silver Laced and play with the BBS X Laced some more, they sound like they will be very pretty if not a standardized color.
One more question. Are there concerns with egg fertility with these English Orpingtons being such fluffy butts? They are huge, not very athletic birds with mega-feathers in the way of the important bits. It seems like there could be mechanical problems? Although the breeder I am getting them from seems to be producing plenty. I'll talk to her about it.

Some people cut the feathers away, some use AI. I agree that you should check with the breeder.

 

[Amer]

If she is lavender mottled, then what is this? It almost looks like blue laced feathers.

I still believe she is splash.

 

[Amer]

Splash (google)
Lavender mottled

 

[NatJ]

I am getting my first rooster tomorrow. He is a Black Laced Silver English Orpington....
1) I plan to sneak a few of the Golden Comet's eggs under an Orp, just for fun and to see what happens. I know just about anything could happen, but does anyone want to guess?

Assuming your Golden Comet has a white tail (not a black tail), I predict:
--silver daughters with black semi-lacing
--silver daughters with white semi-lacing (they will mosty look white)
--sons like both of the above, except their "silver" may look yellowish, and they are likely to have patches of red leakage in their shoulder area.