Lavender buff Orpington cross?

[bit o poultry19]

Hi I just had a couple of questions, why can't you cross a buff orp with a lavender? Is it harder to get the lavender color back again? I have lavender orp chicks and wanted to cross them with my buff orps when they were old enough but I hear some people say that you shouldn't cross lavender and buff. Why not?
I also read somewhere that if you cross lavender with buff you get Isabel is this true?

**Edited to add more questions!**

 

[QueenMisha]

It's not necessarily that you can't - but if you're trying to breed pure birds you wouldn't want to.

The Lavender gene is a recessive blue dilution gene. Think of it as a coat of paint. The bird is actually black underneath; but the Lavender gene is painting a coat of color overtop it.

Being as Lavender is a recessive, any cross of Lavender over non-Lavender will yield non-Lavender chicks. Instead, the Black will show. Now, Black tends to be quite dominant over most colors; the exception would be Buff. Most Buff/Black crosses tend to show black on the lower half of the body with TONS of Buff leakage on the upper half.

The second issue is that all the offspring are Lavender carries. They carry one copy of the gene, and while they do not physically (phenotypically) show it, they can and will pass it on to their offspring. If these Lav carriers are bred to non-Lav, non-Lav carrier birds, some of the offspring will carry it and none will show it. If the Lav carriers are bred to Lav or Lav-carrier birds, some offspring will show Lavender and the rest will carry it.

Here's the problem with these. Lavender dilutes black to Lavender, but it also dilutes red to a soft yellow-bronze. So these offspring, having had recent Buff inclusion, will have ton of red/gold leakage, which will result in diluted yellow-bronze coloring in the Lavender plumage. This color is considered very undesirable in Lavenders.

 

[bit o poultry19]

It's not necessarily that you can't - but if you're trying to breed pure birds you wouldn't want to.

The Lavender gene is a recessive blue dilution gene. Think of it as a coat of paint. The bird is actually black underneath; but the Lavender gene is painting a coat of color overtop it.

Being as Lavender is a recessive, any cross of Lavender over non-Lavender will yield non-Lavender chicks. Instead, the Black will show. Now, Black tends to be quite dominant over most colors; the exception would be Buff. Most Buff/Black crosses tend to show black on the lower half of the body with TONS of Buff leakage on the upper half.

The second issue is that all the offspring are Lavender carries. They carry one copy of the gene, and while they do not physically (phenotypically) show it, they can and will pass it on to their offspring. If these Lav carriers are bred to non-Lav, non-Lav carrier birds, some of the offspring will carry it and none will show it. If the Lav carriers are bred to Lav or Lav-carrier birds, some offspring will show Lavender and the rest will carry it.

Here's the problem with these. Lavender dilutes black to Lavender, but it also dilutes red to a soft yellow-bronze. So these offspring, having had recent Buff inclusion, will have ton of red/gold leakage, which will result in diluted yellow-bronze coloring in the Lavender plumage. This color is considered very undesirable in Lavenders.

Oh ok everthing makes sense now!! So if you cross lav and buff no matter how many times you cross the offspring with lav they will always come out with red leakage?

 

[QueenMisha]

Oh ok everthing makes sense now!! So if you cross lav and buff no matter how many times you cross the offspring with lav they will always come out with red leakage?

Not forever, but it would take a substantial amount of time to get back to a proper looking Lavender. Probably at least five generations breeding back to pure Lavender for a good quality bird. Red is very, very hard to breed out.

That said, it would be a fun cross to make just for kicks. Nothing wrong with making the breeding if you have somewhere to keep the crossbreed offspring separate from your pure birds.

 

[bit o poultry19]

Not forever, but it would take a substantial amount of time to get back to a proper looking Lavender. Probably at least five generations breeding back to pure Lavender for a good quality bird. Red is very, very hard to breed out.

That said, it would be a fun cross to make just for kicks. Nothing wrong with making the breeding if you have somewhere to keep the crossbreed offspring separate from your pure birds.

Oh ok thank you so much!! I was looking at pics of lav/buff orps and they're pretty but I would now prefer to cross to black. I'm going to get some black orp chicks in a month or two(english) and hopefully cross them to my lavs when they're old enough thank you so much @QueenMisha