Split

[cloudy1966]

Can somebody please explain to me what "split" means? What I found so far is pretty confusing. Thank you!

 

[3riverschick]

Can somebody please explain to me what "split" means? What I found so far is pretty confusing. Thank you!

As regards color in a chicken? Let's talk the Light Sussex and the Coronation Sussex as examples. The Light Sussex is a white bird with a black hackle, black tail and some black feathers in its wings. The Coronation Sussex is the same breed and bird but it has a Blue or Lavender gene which turns the black parts blue or lavender. So a Light Sussex has 2 copies of Black and the Coronation Sussex has 2 copies of Blue or Lavender. But if you bred a Light Sussex and a Coronation Sussex together you can get birds which are "split" for one or the other color. In other words, they carry one gene for black and another gene for Blue or Lavender. They may look like they are a pure color carrying 2 copies of a color but genetically they have one copy of black and one copy of Blue or Lavender. Ok?
Now if your breed 2 "split" birds together, you will get both Light Sussex and Coronation Sussex colors. The "split" birds do not breed "true" for whichever color they actually look like because they don't carry 2 copies of genes for that color.
If you wanted to breed only Light Sussex or Coronation Sussex then you would want birds which were "pure" for their color. In other words they carried the correct number of color gene to replciate that color every generation.
If you were a Light Sussex breeder and wanted to add Coronatoin to your flock...and didn't want to pay the higher price for a pure Coronation Sussex,... you coud get ahold of a bird who was "split" for those two colors and breed that bird to your Light Sussex and get some Coronation Sussex in their chicks.
Best,
Karen

 

[cloudy1966]

Thank you, Karen! I was actually trying to figure out "why blue doesn't breed true" and stumbled over the term "split" again. Since I have Blue Orpingtons and black (also splash of course) Orps, I tried to figure out what a black rooster and 2 blue and one black Blue Orp girls would turn into. I got an idea now, but it still seems to be kind of complicated to me.

 

[3riverschick]

Thank you, Karen! I was actually trying to figure out "why blue doesn't breed true" and stumbled over the term "split" again. Since I have Blue Orpingtons and black (also splash of course) Orps, I tried to figure out what a black rooster and 2 blue and one black Blue Orp girls would turn into. I got an idea now, but it still seems to be kind of complicated to me.