Black Splits

[mustangsaguaro]

I have a bunch of black splits from my Lav birds. I am wanting to get away from hatching black splits and concentrate on just Lav color. Is this a good idea or bad? I do have one really nice (or at least what I consider nice) Black split bird. She is still young and am debating on whether or not to keep her just because she is a black split. She is still young so has not started laying yet. I am not sure if the color for Lavs still needs improvement or not. I do realize using a pure black bird will help improve color.

What about egg color? I am sure that needs improving as mine lay anywhere from a blue to blue green and my birds lean more to the blue-green side. One thing I noticed w/ 2 black split I had was they were the ones that laid the more blue egg than the pure Lavs. Would a pure black bird or more black splits improve egg color? What are others thoughts.

And for those of you concentrating on Lavs would you care to share pics of the ideal color? And or share a good colored bird to a bird you would consider poor colored and either cull or just sell as a bird for laying and not breeding if it was a female.  I have a bunch of my breeding Lavs from last year that I feel all have good color on them. I had one that I no longer have she seemed to be dark for Lav and I did not like her color at all. I am assuming you want a lightish color not dark.

Thanks

[HappyMtn]

I like to keep any splits with good traits like type and egg color. If you have a split hen that lays an olive egg or a pinched tail or something like that, then pull her form your program. 

I don't raise blacks as a separate variety, but if you had the space and time...it would be nice to have a pool of good blacks to pull birds from for your lav project. Keep good records, of course, and see who gives you what YOU want to see improved in your flock.

I will try and get some pics of my project juvies today- there are some color differences that might help. I am partial to the lighter birds  in the flock that I have, but I have seen other people with good quality darker lavenders.   

[mustangsaguaro]

I like to keep any splits with good traits like type and egg color. If you have a split hen that lays an olive egg or a pinched tail or something like that, then pull her form your program. 

I don't raise blacks as a separate variety, but if you had the space and time...it would be nice to have a pool of good blacks to pull birds from for your lav project. Keep good records, of course, and see who gives you what YOU want to see improved in your flock.

Right now I don't have a lot of room to work w/ so just want to concentrate on the Lavs. Hubby needs to rebuild my coop where I can have a bit more variety. I did notice last year my 2 black split hens (down to one since some wild animal got the other one) laid a better color, more blue egg than the lavs. So from what I understand you are saying is to probably keep that black split hen since her egg color is the best, to improve egg color for the lavs. Am I right. I do have one really nice black split female from this years hatch that I want to keep and see what her offsprings bring. The young black split has yet to start laying so when she does it will be interesting to see what her colored eggs are.

Thanks

[Beth C]

There are still a lot of things I want to improve in mine, so I'm breeding back to black every other generation. Last year I produced only splits, because I didn't have a lavender male I was comfortable using. This year I will breed them to each other, keep only the lavender offspring, and breed those to black next year. I've seen a great deal of improvement in size, type, and feather quality but they still have a ways to go.

Another reason I like using a black or split male is gold leakage, which has been a problem in my line. Sometimes it's hard to see on lavender cockerels - my first year I had 2 that looked just a *little* brassy, so I used them anyway. By the time the were over a year old, they were almost 2-tone and, needless to say, I had brassy chicks. Leakage is usually obvious on a black male by the time he reaches breeding age.