Lavender ameraucana breeding??

[chickeneyfoot]

Okay. I picked up 4 lav amers and 2 split. The breeder said something about blue egg gene and breeding to split. I'm really xonfuced can someone explain on how to breed lavender ameraucans

 

[chickeneyfoot]

Oh! And 1 lav/split hen

 

[TK Poultry]

Breeding lavender anything is very straight forward. If they are true ameraucanas they all should carry the blue egg gene so I wouldn't worry too much about that. If you breed Lavender x Lavender your going to get all lavender. If you breed Lavender x Black Split (a black bird that has a copy of the recessive lavender gene) your going to get 50/50 black splits and lavenders. Now my experience with lavenders is they sometimes have poor feather quality. This means that their feathers fray and break very easy. Crossing them back to black frequently is the best way to help this problem. Another thing that I found is that they sun bleach easily like a white bird. They will get a yellow tinge if not watched properly. Breeding Ameraucanas is very straight forward. Be sure your looking for a nice fanned out tail, when veiwed from the back makes a V shape. Nice full muffs, and correctly colored eyes. This is another important Lavender problem in my opinion. Nice tail carriage as well. Leg color shouldn't be a problem, and DONT worry about egg color at this point. I feel that type and color come first, then the egg color.

Tyler

edited to correct my terrible typing!

 

[alaina]

I, too, am interested in this subject. I have raised a trio of lav amers and am wondering what comes next as far as continuing with them. They are almost 6 months old. I have no splits.

 

[chickeneyfoot]

Thanks so much! How do I keep their feathers go from turning yellow? I live in a very sunny place. Should I keep them in the barn only? Thanks

 

[TK Poultry]

I wouldn't worry about that as long as you know its bleaching. If your showing your birds I would say 100% keep them in the barn, if not... I wouldn't fret too much about it. It took me a while to figure that out. Also keeping them in a tarp covered run helps a lot as well.

 

[chickeneyfoot]

You know how chickens need sun to lay? Should I keep them in the shaded area only with no sun ? Thanks

 

[TK Poultry]

They know its day time no matter whether you keep them in a building or in a covered run. I keep mine in a building in the winter and a covered run in the summer without laying problems. You don't have to cover them from all sun light but just very direct sun light.

 

[Buff Hooligans]

Quote:
Their egg laying cycles are determined by number of daylight hours, not actual sun rays shining down on them.

 

[hdowden]

theres some good info on my lavender (self blue) page if you want to run over and check it out heres the link

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=612440&p=1