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This is my frustration as well. AND I swear, if i see one more "rare blue orp" sale I'm gonna hurl. People are using words like "rare" to make a sale and sucker someone into buying a mislabled product, if you will.
Because there are so many out there who won't do even the slightest bit of reading before the plunge in to things, they are being taken for a ride. I am by no means a genetic expert. Heck, I barely passed college biology! But, I have read and understand the basic concept of the color genetics.
Further, I have read the standard and looked at a bazillion pics of orps to understand what I should be breeding for in order to get my "project" up to SOP. All of this is time consuming and to get these lavenders up to standard is not an over night process. Years have already been put into the project and years more will be required before anyone is able to claim they have true orpingtons that are lavender.
"I am wondering where is a good place to get a good quality black orpington rooster so I am going to research that a bit more. Thinkin maybe I will need to let my project chicks grow to size first and then look for either a black rooster or hen that has the qualities most needed. "
A good place to start would be an APA sanctioned show. Find breeders who also show and WIN with their blacks. Two years ago I bought eggs from a gal who has shown her birds and I bred my best lav roo to them. My resulting splits are showing marked improvement and they are not a year old yet.
Last year I bought eggs from a gal who has SQ type birds and kept the black. I am showing myself this year - to gage how my black will measure up. Should he do as well as I think he will, he will go on my lavs from this year. I kept only a few lavs form last year, to improve color, most i sold off. This year I will keep the best lav girls and the best split boy and do it all over again.
As far as I am concerned, the lavs at this stage of the game should only be looked at as color influence. In order to get the best birds, you have to breed heavily and cull heavily. I have culled more birds this year than I have in the previous 2. It is the ONLY way to make improvements. If a person continues to breed substandard birds, they will continue to get substandard birds.
If a bird has a flaw like too small, too much tail, incorrect comb, bad temperament, crap feathering, not enough fluff, wrong egg color, etc, they must be removed. Those traits are all passed down. Unless you are destitute and have no other recourse, flawed birds must be taken out of the breeding program.
I think a percentage of the people out there are unscrupulous - trying to cash in quick on a fad, a percentage of them don't have the stomach to truly cull out the less than birds an d so they don't set themselves up to be able to improve the line and some just don't have a clue what they are doing because they have made no effort to educate themselves.
Unfortunately, all three of those make it harder and harder for those of us who are serious about improving the lavender lines and breeding quality "type" birds to get traction in the market.
And too, the more serious a person is the less likely they are advertising on a mainstream market. Think of it this way, if you are trying to build a house, your dream house, do you go and sell off all the lumber you bought to build it? No, you'd never get the house built. The really good quality birds/breeders are hard to come by because they keep most of their stock to themselves. They may sell off some overages or culls but for the most part, they are doing it for themselves, to meet their goals, not to make a quick buck.
So, the very very long answer to your question is, if you want really good quality black birds to work on improving the lav lines, you will have to search long and hard and probably pay a good deal of money to acquire them.
Exactly.
