I can give a little information on the Crele Orpington color. First a true crele is a cross of Cuckoo over Partridge. There is no other combination that will give you crele. A lot of people think Cuckoo over Buff will do it but it will not. Some people will put cuckoo over any other color and the first generation will look "kinda" crele so they sell them as crele, but future generations will look like the birds above.
Most "crele" eggs on Ebay are not going to give you crele chicks. If you want nice crele chicks know the breeder so you know what to expect in future generations. Even dark creles like these chicks
Will grow up to look like these:
Both of these two birds are single barred. You will get single barred pullets, single barred cockerels and double barred cockerels and a small % of pullets that will not be barred, and will look very close to a partridge pullet (she should not be used as a Partridge but can be used with a double barred crele rooster). You will NEVER get a solid cockerel/rooster from breeding 2 single barred birds together.
So what I am saying QueenMisha, is the birds in question above can not be from 2 barred parents, and I can tell you without seeing their pictures that genetically they are not crele, if they were there would be no way they could produce the birds in the pictures. If your friend knows the breeder of the birds the question to ask them is exactly what is genetically behind the parents of the chicks. As I said there are many birds you can cross and the first generation will look "kinda" like creles but future generations will be a disaster. Then those birds are bred back into a true crele line and makes a bigger mess.
The adult creles pictured above are our actual imports, they produced beautiful double barred males and lovely pullets like these.
However each generation lightens and eventually benefits by breeding the double barred rooster back to a "pure" Partridge hen. Thus the different colors in future generations. Every crele is not going to be perfect but every one should be beautiful and unique
If you breed a double barred Isabel (which is lavender cuckoo over partridge) you will produce lovely creles that carry the isabel/lavender gene (diluted crele) and will produce Isabel and crele when bred together, because the partridge and cuckoo gene are at work here as well. It will NOT work with lemon cuckoo, the buff gene is at work and will not produce crele.
Again there is no other combination that will produce crele except cuckoo (black or lavender only) over partridge. An you should start with a double barred cuckoo rooster and partridge hen. The off spring will be always be predictable, they may not always be the perfect crele, but they will genetically carry the combination of genes to produce creles.
The difference in this little guy and the dark cockerel above is that he is double barred:
And he will look like this:
There is just one final thing I would like to add. I have seen this numerous times, Creles are purchased then to produce more creles the purchaser adds something to the next genreation (who knows what) and will sell the resulting offspring as "pure Creles" from so and so's line. Again they are not because something has been added genetically to the mix. If you want to be absolutely positive you have a true crele you can create them yourself from true "pure" black double barred cuckoo over Partridge hens. All the information you can find here:
http://thefancychick.com/CreleEnglishOrpington.html Once something genetically has been added to Creles it is almost impossible to clean it up and make them actual Creles again. It is best to start with new genetics to work with.
I am sorry for the lengthy post but I see this all the time with eggs purchased on ebay. And I can guarantee there is no resolution from the seller. I suggest knowing the person you are buying from so you can ask questions if something doesn't look quite right. They will be able to tell you exactly what genetically is behind the birds/eggs you purchased. Only if it makes a difference to you, of course, some people truly don't care, they just like to hatch the chicks and watch the colorful birds running around their yards, and that is perfectly fine. In that case Ebay is the perfect place to buy.
Hope this information was helpful
This was helpful, although rather confusing! I'm not so learned about the actual color genetics as I ought to be. So, basically, what you're saying is the parents of these birds cannot be pure Crele Orpington? I believe my friend knows the breeder he purchased them from, I'll ask him for sure when I get back to work (he's my boss).
Also, does this mean that true Crele crossed with true Crele will produce Crele? Or does it produce a better result to use Double Barred Male/Partridge female? We also recently produced some chicks from the breeding pair we keep at the shop - they are the pictured Crele rooster, and a Crele hen. I think that makes them a Double Barred male/Single Barred female pair, right? This is the hen:
So far, they have produced offspring that include (at 5 and 7 weeks of age right now): Barred chicks, buff chicks with black barring on neck and black ticking in wings and tail, a single partridge/chocolate type hen, a few Barred with brown/gold in the breast and hackles, one or two that look kinda Barred but are mostly Black, not very much white striping. Does this sound like purebred Crele chicks? We got this pair from the same breeder, I believe, so now I feel rather skeptical. I'll try to get some pictures next time I'm at work.
Oh, & if anyone knows how to make the blue laced red color or a buff laced color, I would be forever in your debt. I think i need to take a genetics class....
