The only male still here from this season is a split. He feathered normally but is starting to show some leakage in his hackles, so he\'s out.
Yeah, don\'t use him.
I think I\'m going to do one hatch with my black cock over the fast-feathering pullet and see what I get.
If you have a black fast feather cock and a lavender fast feather hen, you\'ve got everything you need! The male cannot pass it on and neither can the female, so make some splits and either put the splits together or a split son back over his momma.
Your genetic diversity will be lacking starting with just two birds, but you can add fresh blood in your F2 or F3. You should obtain a black chick order in the meantime or hatching eggs and be working on that at the same time.
If you get slow feather again, either your birds are not truly fast feather, or perhaps you are dealing with a double whammy involving t, and if that is the case, maybe it\'s time to get all new birds.
You should be able to obtain two lav pullets without breaking the bank, to cross back to your black cock. Just make sure you get them from a trustworthy source if you get birds that are already feathered. If you get hatching eggs, you know when you grow them out at day 12 what you got.
If you are able to mark and keep the offspring from each of two pullets separated, I think you could safely mate the splits together, doubling up only on the black cock genes (he is a good one, right?) and 25% of your offspring will be lav with fast feather in your F2. You can ditch all the blacks at that point, since you won\'t know which are blacks and which are splits.
Jean was already doing that (split to split) cross in 2010. I was lucky enough to get some hatching eggs from that cross and I currently have two split daughters and one lav son of one of those original hens.
I have 5 lav females at my place that are laying or starting to lay (well, one is broody). I believe they are all fast feather. I think my course of action is going to be finding a nice black male to put over these lav hens and make some splits (again).
It looks like my Pen B lavender cock, sadly, is on his way out--he does produce some gorgeous female offspring, so it\'ll be a little while, as I don\'t want to back myself into a corner with too few birds to work with. I do have the young cockerel who is his son to replace him with, I know his mother is fast feather, so at the worst he is Kk, and I can still produce females using him.
And I will see what the other cockerel with a faster tail does for me over the Smith splits.
I\'ll keep everyone posted.
Honestly, John, Paul, Jean and others who ship chicks, I don\'t know how you can afford to do it for the very reasonable prices that you do. You are to be commended.