Breeding for Blue Cochin Bantams, Lavender

[Magnolia50]

To breed for blue do you mate a black and splash for some blues in the off spring?

Once you have blue and it has manifested itself if you mate blues will you lock in the color and are they then called self blue.

Should you mate a blue out to a black every other or so generation to keep the blue from diluting down to much

If the color dilutes down does it eventually go to lavender or is lavender a totally different gene.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

To breed for blue do you mate a black and splash for some blues in the off spring?

Hi there, welcome to BYC!

If you mate black and splash... 100% of the offspring will be blue.

Once you have blue and it has manifested itself if you mate blues will you lock in the color and are they then called self blue.

Once you have blue... if your cross it to a blue you will get 50% blue, 25% back, 25% splash.

Self blue or Lavender is completely separate from the black/blue/splash.

No, mating blue to black does not keep the blue from diluting itself. Blue doesn't dilute. Mating to black is for the lavender gene to help eliminate feather quality issues cause by the lavender gene.

Lavender is totally different.

Here is a fun little calculator... the second drop down tab is in English and it doesn't account for leakage...
color calculator


And a little BBS graph..

 

[Magnolia50]

To breed for blue do you mate a black and splash for some blues in the off spring?

Once you have blue and it has manifested itself if you mate blues will you lock in the color and are they then called self blue.

Should you mate a blue out to a black every other or so generation to keep the blue from diluting down to much

If the color dilutes down does it eventually go to lavender or is lavender a totally different gene.

Oh thank you so much

Is the lavender gene one that will diminish the vigor of your flock. Or breeding back into black helps keep structure health etc strong

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You keep asking about lavender. Blue and Lavender are two different things. Lavender is also called "self blue" but it is not the blue gene. Lavender begets lavender hence the self blue term.

Blue is blue and is three different colors in one variety. The chart above shows the breakdown of color mating. Blue dilutes black, two copies of the gene result in splash, one copy is blue and none is black. Hence the three colors in one variety of bird.

Many mate black to splash to ensure all blue offspring. It's not a good choice of mating. There will be a wide range of blue hue in offspring. The goal of blue is to maintain it to slate blue and that can only be done with good percentage of success by mating a slate blue to slate blue or a lighter blue to black.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Oh thank you so much

Is the lavender gene one that will diminish the vigor of your flock. Or breeding back into black helps keep structure health etc strong

Lavender does not diminish vigor.

It *can* diminish feather quality... or NOT... Select birds with good feather quality, if it needs to be improved then breeding to black can help.

Vigor is a separate issue than feather quality. Vigor can be effected by many things like inbreeding... but Lavender is JUST a diluter to black not to vigor.

Egghead jr is correct! And I completely agree with blue assessment. People run BBS together all the time but it doesn't equal true quality blues. Once you start breeding and really getting into the genetic stuff you learn that theses charts like I posted earlier are dumbed down versions for beginners and there is a LOT more to it.

 

[Magnolia50]

You keep asking about lavender. Blue and Lavender are two different things. Lavender is also called "self blue" but it is not the blue gene. Lavender begets lavender hence the self blue term.

Blue is blue and is three different colors in one variety. The chart above shows the breakdown of color mating. Blue dilutes black, two copies of the gene result in splash, one copy is blue and none is black. Hence the three colors in one variety of bird.

Many mate black to splash to ensure all blue offspring. It's not a good choice of mating. There will be a wide range of blue hue in offspring. The goal of blue is to maintain it to slate blue and that can only be done with good percentage of success by mating a slate blue to slate blue or a lighter blue to black.

Thank you.