Ragged lavender feathers

[Scott1029]

Hi,

I’ve recently hatched some British araucanas. They were all supposed to be lavender however one is white and one is barred. The other two are lavender but I think they have the ragged feather gene.

If I cross them to the white araucana would I get lavender chicks with good feathers?

Also do ragged feathers make the chickens less cold tolerant?

 

[sylviethecochin]

Really depends on the genetics of the white Araucana. Can you send for details from the seller? Does she have any black spots, or is she pure white?

As for the ragged feather gene, my understanding is that the gene is really close to the lavender gene on the cromosome. Which means that lavender and ragged feather are likely to be inherited together no matter what you do. If your chicks inherit lavender, they'll almost always inherit ragged feathering as well. Short of incubating upwards of fifty eggs a year for selective breeding, I'm not sure how to get around that.

 

[alexisrambles]

I've got a lavender cochin with ragged feathers! I thought it was because she was ill. Will she ever have non-ragged chicks then or will it be the same as this araucana? She was supposed to be blue but... she's exactly like this girl!

 

[Scott1029]

I've got a lavender cochin with ragged feathers! I thought it was because she was ill. Will she ever have non-ragged chicks then or will it be the same as this araucana? She was supposed to be blue but... she's exactly like this girl!

I don’t know if it’s a recessive or dominant trait. If you breed her with a cockerel with normal feathers then you might be able to breed it out

 

[CountryFlock]

I wouldn’t breed her to white to get more lavenders. White plumage in chickens can be hard to breed with since you don’t know exactly what your working with.

Cross her to black to produce splits and then breed the splits for more lavenders.