How to breed for lavender

[meschatts]

I would love to learn how to create lavender chicks, but I cant find any learning sources. Would yall kindly get me started with either your own knowledge or point me to some reading?! Wondering if theres any way to breed for lavender whiting true blues.

 

[GingerRose]

I would love to learn how to create lavender chicks, but I cant find any learning sources. Would yall kindly get me started with either your own knowledge or point me to some reading?! Wondering if theres any way to breed for lavender whiting true blues.

I would also be very interested in this conversation.

 

[Pekinpeekaboo]

I would love to learn this too

 

[3KillerBs]

I'm a genetics beginner, but if I understand correctly, Lavender is a simple recessive trait.

So, assuming you don't want to lose the blue egg trait that is the #1 defining characteristic of a WTB by crossing with a brown layer,

1. Obtain some Lavender Ameraucaunas to cross with your WTBs (Cackle has them: https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/lavender-ameraucana-chicken/). That will give you the F1, none of whom will BE lavender, but all of whom will be split to lavender.
2. Cross the F1 generation to itself to get your F2 generation, some of which will be lavender.
3. Chose the most WTB-like of the Lavenders to cross back to the pure WTBs for another round of splits.
4. Cross that generation to itself to obtain Lavenders.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4. By this point you *probably* have Lavender birds who are very much like WTBs (who are primarily defined by their eggs -- so selecting only the best eggs will be important).

IIRC, it's important to outcross lavender to black regularly to avoid the shredded feather problem.

I happened to have worked this out with the idea of possibly doing a Silver-Laced Australorp project.

Actual genetics experts can correct me if I've gotten anything wrong.