Understanding Orpington Genetics - Buffs, Lavender, Chocolate, Black, White

[Slothinc]

I have no personal experience and no pictures.

I found a page with a table of how various dilution genes interact:
https://kippenjungle.nl/basisEN.htm
Try the section "Consensus and Debate about Chicken Eumelanin Diluters." There's a discussion of all the ones known to that author, and a table showing what happens when a bird has particular combinations (with some question marks where the author of the page isn't sure either.) I use ctrl + F to "find" the right part in the page instead of reading the whole thing.

Thank you!! On the chart it looks like the result would be lavender. But I’m just guessing it probably will be “lavender” over a brown base, rather than the regular lavenders. I don’t have any plans to do this, but might end up with some cockerels which carry both chocolate and lavender so I guess there could be some potential to have both diluters in my flock in the future.

 

[12bairds]

Why does everyone say buff orpingtons should be kept separate? I have a few breeds of orpingtons, and I am just at the point of eliminating roosters. Currently, I like my buff and jubilee best. I was thinking I would save one of each. I have buff, jubilee, lavender and black hens.

 

[NatJ]

Why does everyone say buff orpingtons should be kept separate? I have a few breeds of orpingtons, and I am just at the point of eliminating roosters. Currently, I like my buff and jubilee best. I was thinking I would save one of each. I have buff, jubilee, lavender and black hens.

It has to do with the color genes. If you keep them separate, everything works nicely. If you mix them with other colors, you get a bunch of non-standard colors.

If you are just breeding for your own pleasure and like unusual colors of chickens, there is nothing wrong with crossing buffs with other colors. If you are keeping a non-breeding flock, there is no reason to separate the colors.

But if you want to produce chicks in specific color varieties, it works best to keep buffs separate from all other colors. Jubilees are another color that does best by themselves, not mixed with others.

If you breed a buff rooster or a jubilee rooster to black hens and lavender hens, you will get get chicks with a lot of black, but they will also have a lot of leakage of other colors. Chicks with a Buff father will show even more leakage than chicks with a Jubilee father.

Here is a thread that has some pictures of chicks that are a cross of Buff Orpington and Lavender Orpington:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/lavender-x-buff-orpington-cross.982278/
The first post has pictures of a chick when he's just getting his feathers.
Here's a later post with pictures of some pullets that are pretty well grown up:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/lavender-x-buff-orpington-cross.982278/page-4#post-16431730

 

[12bairds]

It has to do with the color genes. If you keep them separate, everything works nicely. If you mix them with other colors, you get a bunch of non-standard colors.

If you are just breeding for your own pleasure and like unusual colors of chickens, there is nothing wrong with crossing buffs with other colors. If you are keeping a non-breeding flock, there is no reason to separate the colors.

But if you want to produce chicks in specific color varieties, it works best to keep buffs separate from all other colors. Jubilees are another color that does best by themselves, not mixed with others.

If you breed a buff rooster or a jubilee rooster to black hens and lavender hens, you will get get chicks with a lot of black, but they will also have a lot of leakage of other colors. Chicks with a Buff father will show even more leakage than chicks with a Jubilee father.

Here is a thread that has some pictures of chicks that are a cross of Buff Orpington and Lavender Orpington:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/lavender-x-buff-orpington-cross.982278/
The first post has pictures of a chick when he's just getting his feathers.
Here's a later post with pictures of some pullets that are pretty well grown up:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/lavender-x-buff-orpington-cross.982278/page-4#post-16431730

Thanks. I appreciate your care in responding and the pictures. Obviously, it doesn't matter which roosters I have unless I save eggs for hatching. I think I'll keep the buff and jubilee roosters and have two groups for now, and when I decide to save eggs I'll separate out the buff and jubilee hens to collect only their eggs from their roosters.

 

[NatJ]

I think I'll keep the buff and jubilee roosters and have two groups for now, and when I decide to save eggs I'll separate out the buff and jubilee hens to collect only their eggs from their roosters.

Sounds like a good plan