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Lavender bantams and large fowl
Suz:
--- Quote --- In the spring I\'ll cross the two strains, mixing blood lines from two strains of black Ameraucanas with laverder OE and lavender d\'Anver. I think this will get me quicker to where I to go.
--- End quote ---
Could you please explain about how this will get you quicker to where you want to go?
Thanks, Susie
John:
I think the tail carriage on the d\'Anvers is too high and on the OE too long. By crossing lavender birds from each breed with black Ameraucanas and then breeding the F1 generation of each cross together we may have an easier time breeding out the faults (brought in by each) than breeding to just d\'Anver or OE. Because we are mixing three breeds, instead of two, the gene pool will be larger for the F2 chicks and if enough are hatched we may have some show quality lavender Ameraucanas by this time next year. The d\'Anvers had a lot of benefits over the OE, like muffs and slate legs, but if I only used them in the mix I may have to battle with the high tail carriage for generations. Hopefully the OE will have a \"compensation mating\" affect on it. I also think the over all type of the d\'Anver is closer to the Ameraucana type than OE. Both are fairly small and that is a plus since some of the black Ameraucanas are a bit too large. I don\'t know if the combs matter. The OE single comb is recessive to our pea combs and can be somewhat masked, but we need to breed for a pure pea comb. The d\'Anver\'s rosecomb has equal dominance to the pea comb, so all of the F1 generation have walnut combs. My hope is by hatching enough chicks I\'ll get some with pure pea combs in the F2 generation. That, I think, will be the most difficult trait to achieve early on.
Guest:
You can cheat a little on the tail carriage by using females produced from the Danvers cross. From what I\'ve experienced, F1 males tend to have their father\'s tail set, the F1 females tend to get their tail set and body carriage from their mother. Using a male(s) from the OE cross to females from the Danvers cross you\'d probably hit the nail on the head.
Regardless of how you\'re working the crosses or backcrosses, you\'re looking at a huge F2 generation in order to get semi-showable offspring from it. I say this because you\'re looking at selecting for three different comb gene combinations on top of everything else. With so many of the F1\'s (and F2\'s) carrying the single comb gene, you may end up getting one acceptable comb for every four or five that are unexceptable. That\'s not even taking in to account that close to 50% of your offspring will be black, not lavender.
Since I\'m starting this from behind it will be a whole year before I can get to where you\'re all at. I may just take the longer route and breed black Ameraucana males over the F1 females from the cross, then breed the F2\'s to eachother to get my first lavenders. This would give me lavenders that are 75% Ameraucana, which should have the majority of their traits correct except for size.
As an alternative, I could try a variation of what you\'re doing John. Mate a lavender OE to Porcelin D\'anvers, then select the best ones to mate to black Ameraucana females. Might be a good way to water down the strong body and tail types as well as splitting up the comb genes prior to their introduction to Ameraucana stock.
Either way I wouldn\'t have anything showable until 2008. How soon do we need them? Lol ;)
Regards,
Dan Demarest
Missouri
John:
The type on these F1 birds looks very nice and I was temped to show one of the pullets as a black Ameraucana. The walnut combs on the females is very small.
Some of the OE cross birds have pea/single combs. 1 out of 16 chicks could be lavender and have a pea comb! If I don\'t get lucky, I\'ll breed the F2 lavenders pullets to a pure black Ameraucana cock.
John:
Here is the only F1 bird that I hatched from my attempt to breed for lavender LF. It is a cockerel from a d\'Anver (bantam) male and a LF Ameraucana. Her variety is still in question, but I have referred to them as smokey. They may be dominant white or dunn? Anyway it may be dominant over lavender also, since the cockerel shows the same color as his mama. He is a medium sized bird with walnut comb.
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