lavender and buff but babies came out black??????

[smcdermott]

Lavender Orpington Roo / (12) Buff Orpington Hen eggs, (3) barred rock Hen eggs

All babies basicly came out black??????? Just now, at 2 weeks old there are 2 that are showing some orange coloring on the back. Any ideas???

 

[Egghead_Jr]

They all will have buff leakage as they grow though. If you wanted to darken a lavender then using black is a better option. The chicks will be black but lavender splits like your buff chicks. Then when put under lavender will produce black splits and lavender chicks.

Buff is not the color to use it will always pop up in future generatons and doesn't look good leaking on a blue bird. Get some black Orpingtons if you want to breed the Lavender.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I forgot to say the why of chicks being black. Lavender or "self blue" is caused by an inhibitor of black. It's a recessive gene meaning the bird needs both copies of it to express, if only one copy then it will be black and called a "split". People with lavender birds run splits in pens for several reasons. One is by crossing back to black the color can be enhanced as to not be grey and more blue. Also introduction of genetic diversity is easily done with a black bird as lavender will be harder to obtain and likely closely related to the ones you already have. And lastly one can gain breed type using a black bird. The fancier varieties tend to lack the breed type they are suppose to be. This makes sense as typically another breed is crossed to even make these varieties. By using an excellent type black one can improve their lavender stock.

First cross of lav and black is all black splits. Those splits back to lavender produces 50% lavender and 50% splits (black). If splits are allowed to breed then the offspring is 50% splits, 25% lavender and 25% black. The problem with that is one doesn't know which black carry the lavender gene. It would take crossing back to lavender to find out-if all black chicks resulted then the black parent does not contain Lav gene but all the chicks will be splits. SO it's not a big deal and easily sorted out in generation if splits mate with splits.

 

[gimmie birdies]

 

[dheltzel]

This inherits differently than the lavender that was asked about. Lavender = "self blue" and is a true recessive.

@Egghead_Jr is correct, it is a diluter of black, and being recessive will not dilute the black at all when crossed to buff, giving you all black birds from 2 non-black parents.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I have both blues and lavenders.

 

[junebuggena]

I have both blues and lavenders.

The Black/Blue/Splash gene is an entirely different gene from the Lavender gene. They are not the same. B/B/S is a dominant dilute gene for black. It only requires one copy of the gene to express (blue). Black birds are lacking the dilute gene entirely.
Lavender is a recessive dilute gene for black. It requires two copies to express. A single copy results in a solid black bird.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What they said but I’ll point out something. Since Lavender dilutes black, for the chicken to be lavender you have to have a basic black chicken to start with. Since Lavender is recessive and you are not using lavender hens you should get black the first generation with those hens.

Your lavender rooster over the barred rock hens will give you black sex links. The chicks should all be basically black but the ones with a spot on the head will be male, the ones without the spot will be female. You should be able to see the spot quite well.

Your lavender rooster over the buffs will not give you sex links. The black chicks without the spots on the head could be either male or female.

In theory all the chicks should be black, but buff can have some strange effects on black. When they feather out don’t be surprised to see orange or even yellow. That orange or yellow could be individual feathers or could come in in blotches. Some of those chickens can be quite pretty but they will not conform to an SOP.