Lavender genetics

[Phenomenalchooks]

Hi everyone,

This years hatching hasn't really gone to plan.... I've spent hundreds of pounds on hatching eggs from top breeders to hopefully improve my current stock and gene pool. Unfortunately either eggs have been blank, not hatched or had deformaties etc
Anyway, I was desperately hoping to have some lavenders to breed from next year. Got some eggs from great stock but one of them has hatched blue instead of lavender. This is a Cockerel. My question to you knowledgeable lot out there is - could he be a split lavender? If so, would it be worth hanging on to him to see if he passes on the lavender gene? If so, how should I go about this??
Cheers!

 

[nicalandia]

My question to you knowledgeable lot out there is - could he be a split lavender? If so, would it be worth hanging on to him to see if he passes on the lavender gene? If so, how should I go about this??
Cheers!

He "Could" be split for lavender, but unless he is exceptional on all other traits, I would not use him

 

[Phenomenalchooks]

That's for your reply. Any reason why you wouldn't use him?

 

[nicalandia]

That's for your reply. Any reason why you wouldn't use him?

I don't trust breeders that sell me "Lavender" hatching eggs and I hatch a non-lavender chicks. I would not trust the rooster has Lavender hidden and treat it as non carrier.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I agree. Especially if you say its from great stock.
A decent breeder wouldn't have done that.
He could be split or he could just be from a blue line.
If you could find a lavender you could test breed him and find out. Other wise youre gonna have to breed him to something else and then breed several of those offspring together to test.
That's a bit time consuming for the chances id put on him for being a carrier.
Finding a lavender to test with would be a quicker result but if you can find a lavender hen you should also be able to find a lavender rooster.
Idk. Seems a lot of hassle for a maybe.

 

[Phenomenalchooks]

I agree. Especially if you say its from great stock.
A decent breeder wouldn't have done that.
He could be split or he could just be from a blue line.
If you could find a lavender you could test breed him and find out. Other wise youre gonna have to breed him to something else and then breed several of those offspring together to test.
That's a bit time consuming for the chances id put on him for being a carrier.
Finding a lavender to test with would be a quicker result but if you can find a lavender hen you should also be able to find a lavender rooster.
Idk. Seems a lot of hassle for a maybe.

I've got a lavender pullet so if I breed him to that and they come out 100% lavender, does that mean he's split?
My understanding is you need two copies of lavender so if he's not split they will all come out blue, is that correct?

 

[The Moonshiner]

If you breed him to her and hatch several chicks and he isn't split youll get blues and blacks.
If he's is you'll get blues, blacks, lavenders and lavender blues.

 

[Jraba1315]

I've got a lavender pullet so if I breed him to that and they come out 100% lavender, does that mean he's split?
My understanding is you need two copies of lavender so if he's not split they will all come out blue, is that correct?

I wouldn’t use him. Mixing blue and lavender is not a good idea genetically. If you have some black split to lavender hens you could breed them to him and see if the chicks come out 50% black 50% lavender or 50% black and 50% blue to see which traits he actually carries. If you are confident he is pure blue and has no mix of lavender you could either start a bbs breeding pen or sell him off as a blue.

We had a similar thing happen where we ordered bbs eggs and got two lavender chicks. We are currently in the process of setting up pens to be 100% sure the roo is a pure lavender with no blue mixed in.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Ya blue isn't ideal in a lavender line but if this cockerel is blue what choice would you have if wanting to use him?
The only real issue is gonna be producing a lot of blue and blue/lavender chicks that you'll want to cull from the program.
I wouldn't breed him to a split hen. Whats the purpose of that when theres a lavender hen available?
If he is split and you breed him to a split hen you won't just get 50/50 black or lavender offspring.
You'll get black, blue, lavender and lavender/blue. Any that aren't lavender or lavender/blue may or may not be split and then youre in the same boat again with them.
If you breed him to a lavender they'll get all split chicks if he isn't a split himself.
You can then continue with those chicks (id only use the blacks) to get to lavenders.

 

[Jraba1315]

Ya blue isn't ideal in a lavender line but if this cockerel is blue what choice would you have if wanting to use him?
The only real issue is gonna be producing a lot of blue and blue/lavender chicks that you'll want to cull from the program.
I wouldn't breed him to a split hen. Whats the purpose of that when theres a lavender hen available?
If he is split and you breed him to a split hen you won't just get 50/50 black or lavender offspring.
You'll get black, blue, lavender and lavender/blue. Any that aren't lavender or lavender/blue may or may not be split and then youre in the same boat again with them.
If you breed him to a lavender they'll get all split chicks if he isn't a split himself.
You can then continue with those chicks (id only use the blacks) to get to lavenders.

Shouldn’t they still breed it to a black split? If he’s pure blue he would get blue’s/blacks which wouldn’t be used in their current lavender pens but you wouldn’t want to use that roo either so now they know that and can get him a seperate bbs pen or get rid of him and his chicks. If the chicks come out like you said with blue, black, lavender, and black splits then I wouldn’t use that rooster again because he’s got mixed genetics. But if he’s somehow a put lavender then the chicks will come out 50% black split and 50% lavender. Or am I wrong. That’s how we are going to be doing our own we are putting a just black and a lavender with out lavender roo and if the black ones chicks all come out black and the lavenders are all lavender then we would know he doesn’t have any combination of genetics that we don’t want to deal with.