Lavender Ameraucana Breeders .... UNITE

[Little Wing]

Gold, Silver and Red are leakage. They show up on the neck (hackles), wings and back (saddle) (red mostly on wings)- all at the same time. That yellow on yours could be sunburn - it isn't on every feather. Lavender is stripped black - really stripped - so I am sure the feathers suffer from sun exposure pretty badly. I have one grooming hen too - when I figure out who she is she may go in with the beardless boys!

I do not know if they call darkness on a Lavender "leakage". The one boy I have has fretting on his feathers (black lines) and a dark gray head - its caused when the feathers grow and stop - they are black when they stop - when they grow they are Lavender. The Silver Leakage boy doesn't have the fretting or the dark head - he is much lighter.

Its possible the darker ones are not as desirable for breeding - but that's what I have. My Light boy shows silver, the darker one is a single color but darker with a dark head and fretting. I know the fretting is not desirable - the one Lav hen I have does not have it...

Anybody?

Thanks again. I wasn't sure if the black coming through was called leakage.

He's a pewter looking lavender, he may have a lot of that "barring" looking thing going on.

Thanks Jean. He is my only Smith roo so I am going to hang on to him for a while longer. I haven't noticed any barring. Just the darker feathers and he seems a little small. He also has a bad attitude. Very aggressive for a youngster.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I do not know if they call darkness on a Lavender "leakage". The one boy I have has fretting on his feathers (black lines) and a dark gray head - its caused when the feathers grow and stop - they are black when they stop - when they grow they are Lavender. The Silver Leakage boy doesn't have the fretting or the dark head - he is much lighter.

Its possible the darker ones are not as desirable for breeding - but that's what I have. My Light boy shows silver, the darker one is a single color but darker with a dark head and fretting. I know the fretting is not desirable - the one Lav hen I have does not have it...

Anybody?

I think "fretting" is the same thing as "stress bars" in parrots. If you look at the feather with the fretting, I think you'll see the dark bars aren't dark color on the feather at all, but the absence of the barbules that hold the barbs together that forms the single plane called the vane. The fretting, which looks dark, is really an empty space.

In parrots, it is caused by some sort of stress--illness or nutritional--as the feather is developing. I know my one lavender has a lot of stress bars and all kinds of other signs of poor/improper development of the feather. For example, there is a lot of pieces of dried blood from the inside of the developing feather throughout her plumage. In parrots, I've only seen that when the growing blood feather was damaged and didn't develop properly (or the bird had a disease called Parrot Beak and Feather Disease which chickens can't get). A feather should unfurl with no dried blood in the sheath. That's not happening with my lavender.

I see lots of stress bars and damage to the feathers in many pictures of lavender Ameraucanas posted here, so there is something wrong either with the lavender gene or the lavender gene in a lot of Ameraucanas.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:
From what I have read - the fretting is common to the Lavender gene. It is not stress bars - and the color of the feather is not a break - it is actually black. I have a Split boy that has very interesting male feathers - they are black/green in the center and very shiny and see-through on the outside, and do not show the green sheen. I was going to ask about him -but I was unable to get a good picture of what I was talking about. My Lav. girl does not have fretting, only the boys. I don't have any other all Black boys, so I don't know if this is normal for Black male feathers.

I don't think it is caused by stress, or improper nutrition, or any other outside source, I believe it is caused by the Lavender gene - and when the feather takes a "break" from growing and slows down the bar is black - when it resumes its normal growth it is Lavender. This problem is found in other breeds that use the Lavender gene for their Self Blues. It is not found in the cuckoo/Lavenders that Jerry is working on - perhaps because of something the Cuckoo adds to the feather, I don't know. However, in his Project all the boys are Cuckoo - so if they have any fretting it would be lost in the barring pattern anyways?

Look at the Barring on the Heritage Barred Rocks. In order for them to be even, crisp and dark they need the "slow feathering" gene (K) to slow the feather growth down so the black lines can grow clear. The Lavender boy that I have has the slow feathering gene (it allows for feather sexing as chicks also)- and when their feathers slow down it creates a sort of "barring" on their feathers. That is the fretting.

Chicken feathers when they grow keep the blood in them until they are finished growing. They do not unfurl fully formed - they grow slowly, protected by the sheath, connected to the blood system, until they are fully grown. If one of the chickens pecks at a feather that isn't fully grown they can break it - and the bird will bleed from that pipeline into its blood system unless you pull it out. Smaller feathers will clot - but the big tail feathers are dangerous to let bleed like that. I do not know if it works this way in parrots - but that's the way it works in chickens.

 

[rungirl]

Here is a quote from Paul on his toe punch. It's very clever. He's uses base 2 numbering. It's like the digital code used by computers with 0s and 1s only it's punched or not punched.

The code is 1, 2, 4 and 8 starting with the chicks outside left web being 1, moving right, and ending with the chicks right outside web being 8. The + are punched the same, then slit with a razor blade. Several years ago I had 26 breeding pens of black, blue and splash. The hobby turned into just another job! Cut back the next year! With this system of toe punching, records can be kept on how all birds-up to 30 pens are bred.

So my Pen 11 cockerels have three webs punched but not the inside right web. The punched ones add up to 11, by adding 1+2+8.

 

[rungirl]

Little Wing,

He'd be pen 4. I don't see leakage.

 

[rungirl]

I had two boys with leakage. A Split with gold (very bad and crooked toes too) and the Lav/Silver boy. I still have the Lav/Silver - going to keep him because he will make some really pretty Lav EEs down the road. I didn't take any pictures of the Split before I processed him, he had gotten really really bad - looked like gold striped black. The tips of his toes (all of them) curled back and almost touched his feet.

This is the split with the gold, see how awful his toes were? Those specks turned into gold and got bigger and longer and brighter.

I have this on one of my "better" Lavenders... I thought he just got his feet pinched in a barn door or something! I never saw it until recently. Crap. That means I have NO good Lav cockerels.

 

[Penny Hen]

Here is a quote from Paul on his toe punch. It's very clever. He's uses base 2 numbering. It's like the digital code used by computers with 0s and 1s only it's punched or not punched.

The code is 1, 2, 4 and 8 starting with the chicks outside left web being 1, moving right, and ending with the chicks right outside web being 8. The + are punched the same, then slit with a razor blade. Several years ago I had 26 breeding pens of black, blue and splash. The hobby turned into just another job! Cut back the next year! With this system of toe punching, records can be kept on how all birds-up to 30 pens are bred.

So my Pen 11 cockerels have three webs punched but not the inside right web. The punched ones add up to 11, by adding 1+2+8.

At what age do you use a toe punch? I have just gotten into chickens and plan on hatching a lot in the spring. I was wondering about how to use this system. Has anyone made an instruction article on BYC?

 

[Penny Hen]

I have this on one of my "better" Lavenders... I thought he just got his feet pinched in a barn door or something! I never saw it until recently. Crap. That means I have NO good Lav cockerels.

How do you tell the difference between curled toes that are a genetic deformity and curled toes because your protein percentage is too high?

 

[Little Wing]

Little Wing,

He'd be pen 4. I don't see leakage.

Thanks rungirl!

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:
If everybody is eating the same thing and one bird is that bad - I would say that one has a genetic problem. If everybody has curled toes - then look to the feed.

I have one Lav with one slightly curled toe - the other three and all the girls do not have curled toes. I am keeping him.

Curled toes can also be caused by incubating temperatures. But once again, if it only shows on one bird - there is something genetically not sound there...