Lavender araucanas are not lavender

[Scott1029]

Hi,

I posted this a couple of days ago but I think I put it in the wrong place.

I hatched 4 lavender araucanas on Saturday and they have 3 different colours. Is this likely to have been a mutation, cross breeding in the parents or lavender doesn’t breed true.

My understanding is that it iscrecessive so it should have bred true.

One of the chicks also has a totally different shape?

Any clarification is much appreciated

 

[poisondartfrog]

I've never owned them so I can't be much help. Have you compared them to photographs of that color and breed at that stage?
Here's a link to one I found. They are so cute....maybe next spring.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/70/1b/48/701b489bcbf69da312f60a789b9802d5.jpg

 

[Trish1974]

@Brahma Chicken5000 knows all about lavender...
Are these British Araucanas?

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Lavender is recessive and requires 1 gene for lavender from each parent to express.
Where are you located?

 

[Perris]

I think they should be lavender; perhaps yours have something else in the mix?These are 2 day old pure lav araucanas, British spec

 

[Amer]

I think the pattern in the chicks is just showing variation.
However recessive white can show up even in lavender Araucanas, and wouldn't be surprising to discover, since recessive white is actually fairly common in that breed.

 

[The Moonshiner]

As to your question. I would say it's not a mutation. Although they can happen its very rare that they do and for a few to have different mutations from the same hatch would be unheard of odds.
Yes if they're straight lavender they would always breed true.
Are they cross breeds I doubt it. Lavender can be in combo with other patterns as well as just solid lavender.
That's what I suspect is going on. Instead of the parents being pure for extended black with lavender that they're pattern crossed birds and the different pattern genes are what's causing the different looks.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I too would suspect that because lavender and blue genes both dilute black that perhaps the parent stock has been mixed resulting in chicks expressing lavender and blue genes as it looks like you may have a splash or blue chick. That being said, I'm not even sure if the birds could express those genes without pulling out a pen and paper. But I'd certainly expect the parents to not be black under the lavender which accounts for the discrepancies with the chicks.

 

[Scott1029]

Thanks for all the replies.

They are British araucanas and it does look exactly like you’re suggesting.

Do you know if any of the colour variations happen to be sex linked?

I’ve attached photos of them now (7 days old)