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

[NatJ]

Are chocolate orpington hens extended black? Or E/E^Wh?

Chocolate Orpingtons should be Extended Black E/E, with the chocolate gene on the Z sex chromosome (two for roosters because they have ZZ, one for hens because they have ZW.)

 

[12bairds]

I'm not opposed to multiple coops, but five sounds like a lot of work!

I'm wondering how long a rooster needs to be with a hen to be sure that the rooster is the one that fertilized the hen. I'm thinking I could just keep a breeding pen in which I can put the ones I want to cross, and leave everyone else in a general population coop. It doesn't matter if the wrong animals mate, as long as those eggs aren't hatched.

 

[E flowers]

I'm wondering how long a rooster needs to be with a hen to be sure that the rooster is the one that fertilized the hen. I'm thinking I could just keep a breeding pen in which I can put the ones I want to cross, and leave everyone else in a general population coop. It doesn't matter if the wrong animals mate, as long as those eggs aren't hatched.

I believe it's probably about 5 weeks together for breeding and 5 weeks apart before you can breed the hen to another rooster.

 

[12bairds]

That's a lot longer than I expected it would be. Thanks

 

[E flowers]

That's a lot longer than I expected it would be. Thanks

It may be a little shorter for the breeding period. But it's better to be safe than sorry. You really want to make sure the sperm runs out of the hens system before breeding again.

 

[NatJ]

I'm wondering how long a rooster needs to be with a hen to be sure that the rooster is the one that fertilized the hen. I'm thinking I could just keep a breeding pen in which I can put the ones I want to cross, and leave everyone else in a general population coop. It doesn't matter if the wrong animals mate, as long as those eggs aren't hatched.

The hen needs to be away from the wrong roosters for about three weeks to be sure they are not the father. Sometimes it takes longer than that (up to 4, 5, maybe 6 weeks), but three weeks is long enough in most cases.

The hen needs to be with the right rooster for about a week before you collect eggs for hatching.

You could easily work with three coops: one for hens, one for roosters, and one for breeding. You could put one rooster with the correct hens in the breeding coop, and start collecting eggs a week later. Having all the other roosters in a separate coop would mean the hens are always apart from the wrong roosters.

For some specific combinations of hens and roosters, you will be able to sort the chicks when they hatch. In those cases, you can just switch roosters, wait a week, and collect eggs to set. Once they hatch, check which chicks had the wrong father, and make plans for them (rehoming or culling or keeping as layers but not breeders.) An example: a cross of Buff x Lavender will give black chicks. Those are easy to distinguish from pure Buff chicks or pure Lavender chicks. So if you had those two colors, and a hen produced chicks with the wrong father, you would easily recognize the mixed chicks.

But sorting the chicks will only work in some cases. If you have Buff hens and two Buff roosters, and you want to know which rooster is the father, you need to be sure you wait long enough after switching roosters, because you will not be able to tell by looking at the chicks.

 

[NatJ]

I believe it's probably about 5 weeks together for breeding and 5 weeks apart before you can breed the hen to another rooster.

For breeding, it is really about 2 days after the rooster first mates with the hen (based on how long it takes an egg to form). Some roosters mate immediately, some take a few days to get around to it. A week is usually plenty of time to wait before collecting eggs to set, if the hen was not with another rooster.

For time apart, 5 weeks should be a safe number. Many people go with 3 weeks. If the different roosters will make different-looking chicks, and you are willing to deal with some mixed chicks, a single week can be long enough to have MOST chicks sired by the new rooster.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I'm wondering how long a rooster needs to be with a hen to be sure that the rooster is the one that fertilized the hen. I'm thinking I could just keep a breeding pen in which I can put the ones I want to cross, and leave everyone else in a general population coop. It doesn't matter if the wrong animals mate, as long as those eggs aren't hatched.

Most people say 3 weeks but I've seen fertile eggs up till 4 on occasion. I usually wait 4 or 5 weeks now.
I've hatched eggs from the 2nd day after the new rooster was paired.

 

[Slothinc]

A male could be put with lavender hens to produce quite a variety of chicks:
lavender (males might carry chocolate, females will not)
black carrying lavender (males might also carry chocolate, females will not)
chocolate females that carry lavender
females that are both chocolate and lavender (I do not know how these will look.)

@NatJ
Do you have any idea what would happen if a bird has both the recessive chocolate gene and the recessive lavender genes? I am picturing an evenly colored light brown bird, similar to how a black is lightened when it has the lavender gene. Wondering if anyone has such a bird, as I’m thinking surely it has been done before in orpingtons where both colors are fairly popular.

 

[NatJ]

@NatJ
Do you have any idea what would happen if a bird has both the recessive chocolate gene and the recessive lavender genes? I am picturing an evenly colored light brown bird, similar to how a black is lightened when it has the lavender gene. Wondering if anyone has such a bird, as I’m thinking surely it has been done before in orpingtons where both colors are fairly popular.

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.