Author Topic: Breeding Lavender Ameraucanas to black, blue or both?  (Read 9528 times)

Kristin Kelley

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Breeding Lavender Ameraucanas to black, blue or both?
« on: February 04, 2017, 12:05:26 PM »
I have a flock of lavender Ameraucanas ordered from Paul Smith last spring.  Out of 20 I've culled down to 5 good looking hens and one rooster.  I want to increase genetic diversity and focus my efforts on my lavenders only. 

I have a pen of blue and black Ameraucanas that are great quality but I'm wanting to discontinue breeding due to limited space.  I've read that Lavender can be crossed with black to create splits and improve feather quality in the second generation. Can this be done with breeding lavender to blue?  I'm only focusing on lavender and would be breeding the lavender/blue splits back to lavender.  Any feedback would be appreciated.

Paul

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Re: Breeding Lavender Ameraucanas to black, blue or both?
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2017, 05:18:27 PM »
  You do NOT want to use blue with self blue, incorrectly called lavenders.  The two blues (blue and self blue) are totally different genetically and will clash.  Use only blacks to cross into the self blues, which will create a black chick with a lavender gene, called a split.  Then a split may be used with the self blues producing 50% self blue chicks and 50% splits on the average hatch.  Two splits can be mated which will produce (on the average)-50% splits, 25% self blues and 25% pure blacks.  The splits and the blacks from this mating are the same color and can only be determined which they are by test mating them.  This is done by mating to a self blue.  If a self blue chick is produced then the parent being tested is a split.  If only black chicks are hatched, the black parent isn't a split-it has to be a black.  Hope this helps and that the chicks turned out good!
Paul Smith

Kristin Kelley

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Re: Breeding Lavender Ameraucanas to black, blue or both?
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2017, 09:30:18 PM »
Thanks Paul, that definitely helps.  I'll only cross to black.

Don

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Re: Breeding Lavender Ameraucanas to black, blue or both?
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2017, 10:59:24 AM »
Kristen,  The White, Self Blue and Black are all supposed to be based on the 'E' Extended black gene.  The Blues are bred back to black on a regular basis even though some think that they should only be bred Blue to Blue.  You can find discussions about this on the forum.  Blacks are thought to be best to be 'E' with a 's' Gold gene.  Blues are thought to be bred to be 'S' silver gene, and most agree that they should be based on 'Er' as well.  If if you cross Self Blue with black, try to make sure that the black is 'S' Silver based.  Otherwise you might inherit a gold cast to the Self blue offspring.  There are a lot of folks that are working with Self Blue now that will be glad to help if you have more questions.   They are a great color,  Good Luck!
Don Cash
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Sherry Klaus

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Re: Breeding Lavender Ameraucanas to black, blue or both?
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2017, 11:20:05 PM »
So the silver gene from a black that you would use to create for breeding to your Self-blue comes from ??

Don

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Re: Breeding Lavender Ameraucanas to black, blue or both?
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2017, 09:32:04 AM »
Sherry,  The underlying Silver or Gold genes are not obvious in the solid colors unless they display some leakage and that's not something you want to introduce into your line.  You may get leakage when you cross lines anyway but that is another issue.   

The best Black lines are based on the Gold color, and the best blues are based on the Silver color.   If You intend to use a black male, you might be able to find a Black male out of a Good Blue line that carries the silver genes.  There are a couple of breeders that are very careful to keep their blue/black lines separate.   Alternately, if you have a nice clean Self Blue male that carries a silver rather than gold in the hackle, you can use him with black females.  The females from this cross will carry the silver from the male as its a sex-linked gene.  Then you can use the new pullets with their father again.  This should get you about half Self Blues, half splits again, with both sexes that carry Silver.  This should help to reduce the gold or straw colored hackles that happen in the Self Blue offspring.           That would be my direction, some others feel free to chime in if they have had some other experiences or can point Sherry to a line of birds that they would recommend. 
Don Cash
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