Lavender Orpington question

[corabee]

Okay, so due to a new chicken house being in the construction phase, I had all my Orpington in one pen together for temporary space saving. I have one lav rooster, two lav hens and two blue hens that were penned together for a while. In another pen four of my other hens went broody (gotta love silkies) so I gave them the eggs out of the Orpington pen to sit on. They all hatched and I now have four lav chicks, six blue clicks and eight black chicks. These will obviously be sold as pets not breeder chickens. What I am wondering is how did I end up with blacks? I am learning the genetics and maybe it is right in front of my face, but shouldn't I have ended up with lavs from the lab hens and blue split to lab from the blues? Is something hiding behind my lavs?Or am I missing something and is there anything from this hatch that is worth thinking about keeping or am I right in assuming these are all better off as pet quality egg layers and should not be bred at all?

 

[keesmom]

lavender x blue = 50% blue, 50% black all split for lavender

Lavender is essentially a black bird with 2 copies of lavender. The black splits could be used for breeding with the lavenders. You could also use them for blue/black breedings as long as you keep track of which birds you are using and that none of the offspring are blue and lavender.

 

[corabee]

I was under the assumption that the blue would be awful mixed with the lav. Is it only the chicks that are blue that I should sell off?

 

[keesmom]

It is best to keep lavender and blue separate. If you want to keep things simple sell off the blue chicks and use any black keepers in your lavender pen. If you keep excellent breeding records (which I am not great at) you could use the blue/black splits in your blue pen. You would need to make sure any breedings you do cannot produce lavenders in future generations.