Self Blue (Lavender) Silkie Thread

[jen5680]

Sonoran I can not make out alot of what you say with your genius genetic nowledge!!
In poor simple dumb girl terms (for me that is! LOL!) are the ones I have pictured not pure lavender??
I no about the dark one but what about the ones that do look splash or light grayish blue kinda splashy?
I mean shouldn't a pure lav jsut look pure lav?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
A bird can be lavender AND blue as they are separate genes. This may be close to co-dominance. Both dilute black pigment, and a bird who is both lavender and blue shows characteristics of both lavender and blue. The head and hackles will be darker (also saddle on males), but overall the bird will be lighter than if two copies of lavender were not present. Likewise, if a bird is both splash and lavender, you will see splashing.

The dark blue chick is too dark to have two copies of lavender. It could be split, but there is no way other than test breeding or a known lavender parent to tell.

 

[brenTx]

Hi all,

Very few of the pictures I have scrolled back to veiw don't look anything like my lavender chicks. I agree.... some of them, NO WAY....they are too dark. My lines, breeding MY lavenders to each other I get chicks with no splotches....no weird dark color. I still hatch two different type of chicks...some that have stripes and regular down and some with very little down...those are what we refer to jokingly as lizards. The lizards have VERY dark skin, beaks, combs and eyes and but both looks in my chicks will mature a even lavender color. The males will often show dark hackles at different stages of their lives.

Breeding with splash is a nighmare for no other reason than just being able to tell what you really have. I keep saying, " EVEN IF THEY LOOK LAVENDER you may still have some strange things going on with them if they are out of splash birds." It is in the breeding of those birds that you see chicks like I am seeing here.

I know of several people who have contacted me with similar problems with one breeder who sells lavenders that are not from pure lines. Some very pricey eggbid birds have already been sold off as pet quality stock by very unhappy customers of this breeder

Even using my name or Deb's name for breeding stock doesn't mean our lines are being used correctly to produce the best birds. I hate that I can't control what I sell after it is gone but I can't!! Breeding back to black may give lavenders stronger traits and Robin has a good point there. The reason Deb and I did it was to impove color but it may have also helped other genetics. Lavenders are still a very new variety and we may continue to find things to improve. They do seem weaker the last few days before a hatch and they also seem weaker as chicks but once you get them past a week or so they seem to really thrive like any other variety. Considering how many I set and hatch I don't see a problem but it was pointed out to me recently that the retarded feathering we see with the lizards could be causing problems letting them turn inside the shell as they pip and they die. I am trying to keep a better look out for that.

One thing I do as a general rule with ALL my eggs is mist them. I have never checked humidity...yes NEVER....I hatch way to many chicks as it is so I figure why mess with what is working.

Once they do start hatching, again any color, I have a spray bottle with room temp water and a very fine mist setting and I MIST the eggs when I start seeing them pip. Now, this is hot humid Texas and what works for me may not work for you but if you are losing chicks not getting out of shells...give it a try. Don't over do it...don't drown them. You can also wet your hands and just pick up the eggs and rub them with the mositure. AND...I help a lot of chicks out. If they aren't making any progress and get stuck, shrink wrapped, I start peeling shell VERY slowly. You can bleed them out so be very careful not to get that going. If you see bright red blood stop. Give it a few mintues to absorb and try again. By the way...once you start this you will have to finish it. They really get stuck with bleeding so it will be your job to deliver them. If you have an egg pipped all the way around and still membrane is holding it shut....try misting and if that doesn't do the trick I do a C-Section and take it out. It will die any how so give it a chance. this is also when they are going to end up with deformed toes and legs. They continue to mature in those last few minutes and if those chicks don't get out as they should the toes will become misformed as well as legs.

OK...more than you guys asked.

 

[trisha19]

So I guess I need to know how much of a headache breeding these birds is going to be. Should I just throw them in with my B/B/S and say screw it? If I decide to try and use these birds what should I breed then to? I know I will have to keep very good records. Does that mean if I bred them I will have to keep all the offspring till they mature to tell what color they are? Sorry for so many questions but I am really burnt out on this whole thing and want to try and figure out where to go from here.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

I would so much appreciate a little bit more explanation of why a bird can be both a lavender and blue. If lav. is recessive and is homozygous, how can it also be co-dominant? To have mixed phenotype, wouldn't lav have to be an incomplete recessive? I understand a bird being phenotypically blue carrying one copy of lav and I don't think it would look any different from a Bl/bl+ bird...would it? Kind of like F1 black/lav crosses...they look alike but each carries a copy of the lav. gene.


I'm trying!!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
IMO, if you want to completely abandon lavenders and let it run through your blue and splash birds (it is already in many blues and splashes), fine, but I strongly recommend against saying that they are carrying lavender--there is simply no way to know without test breeding. (It is one thing to say that it runs through your lines and may pop up, and another to say that it is likely to pop up.) Alternatively, breed then to blacks only if you must outcross colour (or buff if you want to work on porcelains). If I were raising birds who are both lavender and blue/splash, I would use chicks showing signs of blue or splash as criteria for culling them from my lavender flock--keep only those who show clear lavender. Initially this could be as few as 25% of the birds. (Breeding lavender blues to lavender blacks.)

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Hold on---getting an answer worked up.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I have a remote weather sensor in my incubator that sends temperature and humidity levels to a weather station in my den. It also displays temperature and humkidity so that I can look in the door and see what it is registering at any time. It did die once and start registering incorrectly--it's been awhile, so I don't recall whether it registered high or low--just that it was obvious based upon water on the try and temperature readings that it was way off. I replaced it with a new sensor and it has worked fine ever since. I had a lot more trouble when I was using a wetbulb thermometer and charts.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Quote:
Fancy!!!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Fancy!!!

Easier!