English Orpington BBS and Laced genetics questions

[HollowOfWisps]

I agree she is splash not lavender mottled. She definitely has the lacing on her blue feathers. The feathers could be that way from a rooster even. However, @ColtHandorf breeds English Orpingtons and would know.

 

[SourRoses]

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

But blue doesn't come with the feather shredding gene...

Closeup -

@3KillerBs , you've had to determine Lavender vs Blue before in your flock, what is your perspective on this one?

 

[SourRoses]

@Egzermalda Can we see a picture of her feet?

 

[Egzermalda]

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.

Yeah, I probably can't send her back.

 

[Egzermalda]

@Egzermalda Can we see a picture of her feet?

Yeah, stay tuned. I will get some more pics of her. Those posted pics are almost 2 months old, when I first got her.

 

[Egzermalda]

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.

White/Buff tail. She is in the pics in the original post. With the Blue Orp. They should make very pretty Barn Yard Mix layers. She has given me a perfect large brown egg every single day since Dec 19 2022 when she first started laying.

 

[Sally PB]

Quick question, and I don't mean to derail the thread...

My two Blue Australorps have some feathers that are shredded looking. One, especially bad. Does this mean they are actually lavender, or just poor feather quality?

 

[Amer]

But blue doesn't come with the feather shredding gene...

Closeup -

View attachment 3387957



@3KillerBs , you've had to determine Lavender vs Blue before in your flock, what is your perspective on this one?

Birds without lavender can still have poor feather quality.

 

[Sally PB]

Birds without lavender can still have poor feather quality.

I wonder if that's what I got. I'm getting another Blue Australorp chick this spring from a different hatchery. I love the color, and I want to compare her to the ones I have.

 

[Egzermalda]

@SourRoses , @Sally PB, @Amer
Updated pics of the "Splash" hen with some frizzy tail feathers. It has been about 6 weeks since the previous pics. She has not had any obvious molting. She is probably about 6-7 months old. To me the tail feathers don't look any worse and not really the typical Lavender shredding, just kind of semi-frizzled? Her coloring certainly is more consistent with Splash than Mottled lavender, both from pics from the web AND compared to pics of the breeders Mottled Lavenders. Perhaps some "tail shredder" genes from the Lavender Mottled snuck into her gene pool a few generations back? I have seen at least one thread about the "shredder" gene in blues? I kind of chose her out of the Splash pen for her extra fluffy butt, so I guess I can't complain about the feather condition

What does the feet color mean?