Lavender questions??? *pics added*

[bufforp89]

I thought that if you breed anyother color to lavender you would always get black chicks? Is this true or something I have convinced myself? I incubated a few cochin eggs from my bantam pen that has cochins and lavender ameraucanas and some of the offspring are deff EE. They have green legs, pea combs and look nothing like cochin chicks. I though that any EE chicks would be black though from this mix? They are more of a dirty white color. I can ad pics later if need be.

 

[Muggsmagee]

Is your Cochin black? Maybe there is a recessive white gene in one or both of the birds? Post a pic when you can...I'm curious.

 

[MuranoFarms]

The way I understand it you need both parents to carry the lavender gene for the offspring to look lavender. So if you breed lavender to black, you'll get all splits. They look black but they carry the lav gene. Breed these to a lav and you've matched up 2 lav genes so all off spring will look lavender. Breed splits to regular black and you only have 1 lav gene so you get regular black.

If you breed the lavender to any other color, you'll only have 1 copy of the lavender gene so you wont get a chick that looks lavender.....unless the other bird had 1 lavender parent and that's where it gets muddy to me! lol Different colors affect the lav color so to keep it true always breed to black or splits.

I'm new to this color...have only been studying it a few months, so hopefully someone else can chime in.

 

[hinkjc]

Agree, the only way the first generation would be black is if you used solid black birds to the lavender. Other colors would have to be calculated based on the Lav bird (as black diluted) crossed to whatever you are using. In many cases, anything goes when you're working with wild type genes.

eta - the green legs are due to the yellow skin of the cochin crossed to the black skin of the lavender (black based bird) .

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

The chicks will not be lavender if they receive the gene from only one parent, but every chicken has many genes (half from each parent), and the combination of ALL of the genes determines their appearance. Depending on the colouring of the cochin parents, and whatever genes the lavender parents have (other than lavender), the offspring may have a wide assortment of phenotypes. If any cochin carries lav, there is a fair chance of getting some lavender chicks, too.

 

[bufforp89]

well whatever they are here are some pics.....I am positive that the hen was a buff cochin, although she is a poor example of a cochin and that there is no lavender in her backround. She comes from a mixed color pen that included buffs, gold laced and a few splash hens. The lav roosters come from John Belhm.

The last one is them and a buff in the middle
It dosnt really matter what they are, I was just curious....this whole genetics thing has me confused lol

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

With red/gold showing through, that white is almost certainly dominant white.