Who's the Daddy?

[AShelDuck1]

Terrible picture because I have a cheap phone and she's protective.

These were hatched by that lavender Orpington named Gerty. Her "sister" is Missy a buff Orpington. I have Frank a Lavender Orpington. We also have a flock of Bielefelder hens and roosters.

When I incubated their eggs any of Missy's eggs hatched black chicks. So I wonder who's chick that is and who's the Daddy?

Just for fun!

As a side topic how do you keep your flocks separate?

 

[SilverBirds]

Pictures?

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

Can you show us the pictures? They did not load.

As a side topic how do you keep your flocks separate?

Two of my main flocks are free-ranged, and the other ones are kept in pens with plenty of space and things to do. My two free-ranged flocks frequently mix together because my Cochin Bantam rooster found a hole in the fence, and it is quite funny how they all get along for the most part. Slate (the Cochin Bantam rooster) goes through the hole every morning and chases around Phoenix's (the rooster in the other yard) hens and tries to mate them but once Slate has his morning hormones out he goes about regular business. He brings his own hens over into Phoenix's yard and neither one of them cares about each other. Phoenix allows Slate to go in their roosting pen together and they just kind of hang out. One of the weirdest things of my flocks.

 

[NatJ]

These were hatched by that lavender Orpington named Gerty. Her "sister" is Missy a buff Orpington. I have Frank a Lavender Orpington. We also have a flock of Bielefelder hens and roosters.

When I incubated their eggs any of Missy's eggs hatched black chicks. So I wonder who's chick that is and who's the Daddy?

Black chicks probably come from Missy and Frank. Crossing a Lavender Orpington rooster with a Buff Orpington hen will typically produce black chicks.

Depending on how much your chickens are separated, you might also have some Bielefelder-mix chicks.

Crossing a Lavender Orpington rooster with a Bielefelder hen will typically produce black daughters, and black sons with white barring (male chicks have a light dot on top of their head when they hatch, and grow black feathers with white barring in them.)

A Bielefelder rooster with a Lavender Orpington hen should produce both sons and daughters that are black with white barring.

So if your "black" chicks have a light dot on top of their head, they have one Bielefelder parent and one Lavender Orpington parent. If your "black" chicks do not have a light dot on their head, they are either from Missy & Frank, or they are females with Frank as the father and a Bielefelder mother.

 

[AShelDuck1]

Here you go. The gray one is obviously lavender on lavender but how did I get a buff ?

 

[NatJ]

Here you go. The gray one is obviously lavender on lavender but how did I get a buff ?

The "buff" might be from the Buff Orpington hen and the Bielefelder rooster. If that is the case, it should have white barring in the feathers as it grows. Of course white barring on buff feathers can be hard to see, so it may not be obvious.

The other explanation would be your Lavender Orpington rooster carrying some other genes that allow buff coloring rather than just black or lavender. But I think Bielefelder father is more likely for that chick.