Lavender Orpington project ....

[daxigait]

Yes, and I like the breadth of body on yours. Maybe I should invite some from the Buff thread if we don't get any comments. We need serious people like the heritage RIR breeders.

 

[daxigait]

daxigate:   Your pullets with the poor feather quality is the result of the K-gene not from breeding lavender to lavender.  Your male does have Squirrel tail as you have noted and will produce the same in a good portion of your offsprings.  If these are all you have to use then proceed hatch many and cull hard.  You can use a black with silver base genes to improve quality and color,  a black with gold base will make you lavenders offsrpings extremely dark in color and color issues with black flecking in the neck and smutty wing bar areas.  

WVduckchick:   You can use this male over any black hen and only keep the pullets the males will be carrying both gold and silver base genes and will take a few years to clean up.  You need to use hens with him that have good forward breasts to make improvement so you don;t have the ski slope chests that are common in most strains.   UK hens would be probably the best route to go if they have nice breasts.  Breed him back to his daughters and proceed from there adding some new blood the following F3 generation.

How do I find and identify black with a silver base?

 

[robgray]

Here is one of my pullets I grew this year. I love her coloring.

 

[WVduckchick]

daxigate:   Your pullets with the poor feather quality is the result of the K-gene not from breeding lavender to lavender.  Your male does have Squirrel tail as you have noted and will produce the same in a good portion of your offsprings.  If these are all you have to use then proceed hatch many and cull hard.  You can use a black with silver base genes to improve quality and color,  a black with gold base will make you lavenders offsrpings extremely dark in color and color issues with black flecking in the neck and smutty wing bar areas.  

WVduckchick:   You can use this male over any black hen and only keep the pullets the males will be carrying both gold and silver base genes and will take a few years to clean up.  You need to use hens with him that have good forward breasts to make improvement so you don;t have the ski slope chests that are common in most strains.   UK hens would be probably the best route to go if they have nice breasts.  Breed him back to his daughters and proceed from there adding some new blood the following F3 generation.

Thank you very much for the input. I really do appreciate it.
Here are a couple shots of my black hen. She has 6 lav sisters. A couple of them started laying this year, but I don't believe she is laying yet.

 

[WVduckchick]

Here is one of my pullets I grew this year. I love her coloring.

I think she does have beautiful coloring. The tail feathers look more male to me, but maybe its just the angle.

 

[daxigait]

@Shafferthanks

 

[Shaffer]

WVduckchick: That black hen will work great with her chest over your lavender male.
The lavender female you made a quote on looks like it may have a pinch tail.

 

[Shaffer]

Daxigait: It takes some breeding unless you have a silver birchen hen which will work perfectly. Most blacks are gold base unless they come from good blue X blue and you get a black hen from this breeding.

 

[WVduckchick]

WVduckchick:  That black hen will work great with her chest over your lavender male.
                         The lavender female you made a quote on looks like it may have a pinch tail.

Great, thanks. Now if only I can identify her eggs! She is very pretty in person.
I dont know what a pinch tail is, but I'll look it up.

 

[daxigait]

I am such a newbie. So breed him to the silver birchen? Would it be easier to search for a different roo to cover the two pullets with the squirreling? I got them from the same place and did not notice it much when they were little.