lavender splash? genetic gurus please...

[Henk69]

I mean, I am not convinced by those pictures alone. Too much alike.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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cute!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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Should, but doesn't seem to dilute a dilution in reality. One reason I was hoping Tim would chime in on how it works on a cellular level (or do you know, Henk?) Since there is already such a diversity in the background colour of splash or the markings, I really don't think that lavender gives a distinct difference to where you can tell by the background shade or the number of splashes.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

I see a HUGE difference in the lav/splash and splash.

I was trying to use the chicken genetics calculator to see the outcome of the following:

splash split/lav cock over a black split/lav hen

I obviously don't know how to do it because I couldn't figure out how to select the splash/split lav. Anyone else know how??

 

[SilkieTime]

If you keep breeding splash to splash you get a washed out splash that looks some what lavender? These are not lavender. If you breed them back to black they will go back to splash or blue? I'm seeing a lot of washed out splash chicks floating around. You could have a lavender gene in some of them but they would be very hard to pull out? Am I right?

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

So what would you get if you bred a split lav/splash cock and hen together? Each ones phenotype is splash but each has a recessive lav. gene. Would you get 50% lav and 50% splash since both splash and lav breed true? Would the resulting splash chicks carry a lav gene?

 

[keesmom]

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Yeah, I know my camera stinks. The difference is subtle anyway.

That particular chick and the solid lav were from a lav X split breeding, according to the lady I got them from. She's not unheard of and I have no reason not to trust her.

 

[Henk69]

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Should, but doesn't seem to dilute a dilution in reality. One reason I was hoping Tim would chime in on how it works on a cellular level (or do you know, Henk?) Since there is already such a diversity in the background colour of splash or the markings, I really don't think that lavender gives a distinct difference to where you can tell by the background shade or the number of splashes.

Half, on the cellular level.
Normally in genetics a combination of diluters has a dramatic effect.
Lavender is said to be epistatic to blue, not convinced of the combination being darker than lavender alone.
These combination-animals should be testmated, and who does that these days...

Lavender inhibits pigment to enter the feather. Lavender cuckoos therefor have darker skin than normal cuckoo (observation by Sigrid van Dort). Andalusian Blue clumps black pigment, you get microscopic black spots on a white background hence grey.
I do believe that melanizers can make any of these colors darker and if you cross blue to lavender you are mixing their melanizers as well, so variable expression is to be expected. A nightmare to sort those out...

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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Agreed.

Thanks for the cellular explanation.

 

[Henk69]

Found this article.
Summary. The melanosomes, pockets of black pigment, are not transported in lavender cells. They stick to the cell nucleus.

http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/51/1/25.pdf

So lavender already is a maximum clumping. Additional clumping by Andalusian Blue should not have a darkening effect.
The mechanism of andalusian blue is the bigger unknown here...

I mean splash chickens can be extremely white. Where does all the black pigment clump to?