Questions on breeding for Lavender

[keystonepaul]

Get and breed two unrelated lavenders to unrelated blacks. As chicks hatch mark them as to which pair produced them. Those offspring are all split for lav: Lav+/lav. Breed the chicks from each group together. 25% will be lavender, select for type and breed back to parents and 50% should be lavender. Continue selecting for type until you have regained it. One you have, breed lavenders only to each other--the only point in the splits is to create a gene pool and for breeding to type.

I'd be interested in knowing if this approach is better than breeding your split lavs together keeping those closest to type and then breeding in an unrelated black austrolorp (think this thread was about Austrolorps) to get diversity. Wonder which would be better gene pool wise and type wise. Don't know which would be better, if one would have more benifit than the other appraoch, etc. Anyone? Tim? Thanks, interesting topic. Keystonepaul​

 

[Krys109uk]

IMO to regain type, in the case of lavender, breeding back into the best black examples of the desired breed would probably be fastest.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

My suggestion was to create two separate genepools of lavender splits, and to breed those together. That increases the genetic diversity. Then breed those lavender offspring with the best type back to good type blacks or splits.

Any time you breed to non-split black you will not have lavender offspring. To ensure splits, you need to breed the non-splits to a lavender bird, otherwise you won't know which offspring are split and which aren't.

When you breed lavender to split, half your offspring should be lavender. I think the exact route you choose should probably depend on how close to or far from type the offspring are.

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
I'd be interested in knowing if this approach is better than breeding your split lavs together keeping those closest to type and then breeding in an unrelated black austrolorp (think this thread was about Austrolorps) to get diversity. Wonder which would be better gene pool wise and type wise. Don't know which would be better, if one would have more benifit than the other appraoch, etc. Anyone? Tim? Thanks, interesting topic. Keystonepaul

Paul,

I agree with Krys and Sonoran. I do both back crosses and inter se or sibling crosses and out crosses all the time. It just depends on your goal concerning a cross.

Lets say you cross a male lavender bird (Lav) to a female black australorp (BA) ; the F1 will be black and have a body type in between Lav and the BA (every chick will carry a lav gene).

You have two options: 1) backcross the F1 to the Lav ( 50% Lav offspring) or 2) do an F1 or sibling cross(25%) Lav F2 offspring.

The back cross will produce more Lav birds but type will suffer and the Lav offspring will be more like the parental Lav bird.

The sibling cross will produce fewer lav birds but you have a good chance of getting birds with a body type more like the BA.

If the offspring does not have the proper body type out cross to an unrelated BA and start all over again or you can back cross to the original BA (or a relative of the BA) and start over.

Breeders have inbred lines that they keep for decades and do not have problems. Do not worry about inbred depression with a flock. Breeders should not equate chickens with humans. There is nothing wrong with an inbred line of birds. In chickens, being inbred is not a bad thing; it is actually a good thing in chickens. It indicates a stable pool of genes.

Tim

 

[Krys109uk]

Breeders have inbred lines that they keep for decades and do not have problems. Do not worry about inbred depression with a flock. Breeders should not equate chickens with humans. There is nothing wrong with an inbred line of birds. In chickens, being inbred is not a bad thing; it is actually a good thing in chickens. It indicates a stable pool of genes.

I'm glad someone else thinks this.
My eldest son got a first in biology from London. I'm a mathematician not a biologist,so, of course, he knows considerably more about genetics than me. He tells me that inbreeding with ruthless culling for any weakness whatsoever, is to way to get consistent results.​

 

[Elite Silkies]

Thank you guys so much for all the information.

I am going to introduce a Lavender BO Roo with the hens and start from there.

I think I will breed the siblings, so that I can keep the body structure of the Australorp. I can deal with 25% Lavender.

I don't mind linebreeding/inbreeding as long as I can keep the body structure, I don't think their is a problem with linebreeding either.

Tim, you made is so easy for me to understand, thank you, thank you thank you!

I am going to go with Tims, Krys and Sonoran's approches. Thanks guys, I wouldn't have figured it out with out all the help.

Cammy

 

[keystonepaul]

Tim, Kris, Sonoran, Tammy and others thanks this was informative. Thanks, Keystonepaul

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Your welcome

I know I love talking genetics--the subject facinates me.