lavender chickens. - how do you start to produce them.

[sharon108]

Hello,
First time online and no nothing except chickens are abit forming.

Last year I bought some large lavender chickens. Two roosters and three hens came from the five that I bought.

When I bought them the lady said I have to have a black and then I read online that he found having black silkies really worked well for getting lavender chickens.

so Now I am at a point on what to do next. Besides the five that I already have-have order five more little chicks and picking up two year old black silkie rooster.

Feel a little bit stupid but what next. ???

thank you for your help sharon

 

[dheltzel]

No, you do not need blacks to produce more lavenders. Lavender is a recessive trait, also called "self-blue" to differentiate from the more common blue trait that is partially dominant and so produces black and splash (white with some black markings).

Breeding Lav to Lav produces 100% Lavs, that is the only way to get all Lav progeny. The Lavender gene dilutes black, but only when present in a "double dose", one copy from each parent. Breeders often breed Lav to Black as an outcross, to get rid of some of the inbreeding issues that crop up from breeding Lav to Lav for too many generations. The result of Lav to Black is all black chicks, but they each carry one gene of Lavender, and that will come back out in future generations when a chick gets that gene from both parents. The blacks that carry a Lav gene are often called "split for Lavender". Crossing 2 of these will produce about 25% Lavender chicks. If you cross one of the splits to a lav bird, you will get 50% Lav, and the other 50% will be split for Lav.