Creating isabella Orpingtons

[JustAnotherWeirdo]

I have a beautiful lavender rooster and the opportunity to buy 2 crele hens right now which I want to create Isabellas with since i haven’t seen a single person in the country with them yet and I’m just looking for some advice and tips as well as answers to some of my questions if somebody has them

From my understanding I’ll have cuckoo Isabella chicks from this combination and would like to know how to get isabellas without the cuckoo feathering.

and would I get lavender chicks too from mixing them and be able to sell them as lavender? And if that’s possible would I get more pure lavender from mixing those chicks with lavender? This information is needed because I want to put some lavender and black hens with the rooster too.

Below is a photo of my roo and the hens

 

[Egg Snatcher]

@NatJ

 

[NatJ]

I'm going to answer in rougly backwards order, based on which ones have shorter or longer answers.

I have a beautiful lavender rooster and the opportunity to buy 2 crele hens...would I get lavender chicks too from mixing them and be able to sell them as lavender?

From the first generation mix of lavender and crele, you should get just black chicks. Later generations of the project can give some lavender chicks.

Selling them as lavender: probably yes, if you make it clear that they may carry the genes for other colors (so they should not be expected to breed true for solid lavender.) For people who just want pretty backyard layers, mixes will not be a problem. But they could be unwelcome in a pure lavender breeding flock.

And if that’s possible would I get more pure lavender from mixing those chicks with lavender?

Yes, if you breed pure lavenders with the lavender chicks that are mixes, they should produce some chicks that are pure lavenders (no genes for other colors/patterns), but they will probably produce some chicks do carry those other genes.

If you want to test-mate them to see, try crossing with crele again: a pure lavender should give just black chicks (or lavender, if the crele carries the lavender gene). A lavender that produces crele or isabella chicks, or silver-and-black or silver-and lavender, is obviously carrying the genes for those colorings.

This information is needed because I want to put some lavender and black hens with the rooster too.

Lavender rooster with lavender hens should produce just lavender chicks (unless they are carrying other genes, in which case you might get some isabellas or silver-and-lavender chicks.)

Lavender rooster with black hens should produce black chicks. If the hens are carrying the lavender gene, you will get some lavender chicks too. If the hens and rooster are both carrying genes for other colors or patterns, you might get chicks that are not just black or lavender.

Lavender rooster with crele hens should produce black sons with white barring, and black daughters with no white barring. The white barring in the sons will make them easy to recognize, but the daughters will probably look about the same as black daughters of the black hens. As they grow up, daughters of the crele hens may show leakage in their feathers, especially in the breast area, rather than being solid black all over. (Leakage does not tell you for sure which mother they had, because they might not have it, and daughters of the black hens might also show leakage. But leakage is much more LIKELY to happen in offspring from the crele hens.)

I have a beautiful lavender rooster and the opportunity to buy 2 crele hens right now which I want to create Isabellas with since i haven’t seen a single person in the country with them yet and I’m just looking for some advice and tips as well as answers to some of my questions if somebody has them

Unfortunately, it is going to take several generations and hatching large numbers of chicks before you have any isabellas. It will take time after that to build htem up to a reasonable number and be able to select for good traits in other respects (like body type and feathering).

This may be why there aren't any in your country yet, because creating them is a big project.

From my understanding I’ll have cuckoo Isabella chicks from this combination and would like to know how to get isabellas without the cuckoo feathering.

Basic points about the colors and genes involved:

Lavender is a solid black chicken, diluted by the lavender gene which is recessive.

Isabella is a red-and-black pattern, diluted by the same recessive lavender gene.

Crele is a red-and-black pattern with white barring. The barring is dominant and sex-linked. Being sex-linked means it is on the Z sex chromosome, so it is inherited differently in males (chromosomes ZZ) than in females (chromosomes ZW.) A rooster inherits Z from each parent, and give Z to each chick. A hen inherits Z from her father and W from her mother. She gives Z to each son and W to each daughter. That means barring cannot be passed from mother to daughter (no barring on the W chromosome), but it can go from mother to son, and from father to son or daughter.

Solid black is dominant over the genes that allow red-and-black patterns.

Crele and Isabella are genetically gold. Lavender can be, but I am going to assume that the original rooster is genetically silver because that seems to be pretty common. If I am wrong, your breeding will be a bit faster and easier, because each "silver" chick I predict will actually be gold.

With a lavender rooster and crele hens, yes it should be possible to produce isabella chickens with no white barring, but it will take several generations.

If you breed the lavender rooster to the crele hens, they should produce black daughters, and sons that are black with white barring.
All chicks will carry the lavender gene.
All chicks will carry the genes for a black-and-red color pattern, but it mostly doesn't show because the genes for black are dominant. They may have a bit of leakage (red or other colors), rather than actual solid black.
Those chicks can be called F1 (first generation of crossed chicks.)
I can see three different breeding paths to get from them to Isabella birds.

If you breed the F1 females back to the lavender rooster, you will get some black chicks and some lavender chicks, about 50% each way. None of the chicks will have white barring. About half of the chicks will carry the genes for black-and-red coloring (which is what you need to get isabellas), and the other half will not.
From this, you would not use the 1/2 of chicks that show black (rehome them, or keep them as layers but not breeders, or process them for meat.)
1/4 of the chicks are pure lavender and the other 1/4 look lavender but carry the genes you need for Isabella pattern. The trick is to sort them out.
Some of the lavenders might have yellow or white leakage. If so, breed them to each other, and you have a good chance of getting about 1/4 isabellas in their chicks.
Otherwise, keep all the lavender females you can, and a few of the lavender males. Crossing a lavender male to a crele hen will either give black chicks (like the F1 chicks), or it will give a 50/50 mix of black chicks and multicolored chicks ("multicolored" may be black-and-red or silver-and-red. Both the black chicks and the multicolored chicks will have white barring in the males but not the females.)
By testing the males one by one with the original crele hens, you can find a male who does carry the genes you need (produces some black-and-red chicks, with or without white barring.) Cross that male to his own sisters (lavender pullets), and you should get about 3/4 lavenders and 1/4 or 1/8 isabellas. If 1/8 are isabellas, the other 1/8 will have silver instead of the yellow/gold colors, and they can also be used to produce more isabellas in future generations. None of the chicks will have white barring.

Alternately, you can breed the F1 males back to the crele hens. You will get black chicks, red-and-black chicks, and maybe some silver-and-black chicks. All males and some females will have white barring, but you should get about 1/4 of female chicks that have no barring and do have a multicolored pattern (red-and-black or silver-and-black.)
Of those multicolored non-barred females, about half will carry the lavender gene, but you can't tell which ones they are. So cross all those females back to an F1 male (their father or another one.)
The females that do carry lavender will give chicks in four main colors:
black (carrying lavender)
lavender
isabella and silver/lavender coloring
red-and-black and silver-and-black coloring (carrying lavender)
The females with no lavender gene will give chicks that are black and chicks that are multicolored (red-and-black or silver-and-black.)

Isabellas are what you want. The silver-and-lavender ones are genetically just like isabellas except that they have silver when they should have gold. Breeding silver-and-black females with isabella males, or with red-and-black males that carry the lavender gene, should produce some isabella hens in the next generation.

Or, the third option, you can breed F1 males with F1 females.
You will get lots of black chicks, some lavender chicks, some multicolored chicks (red-and-black or silver-and-black), and probably a few isabella or silver-and-lavender chicks. For all of those colors, half of the chicks will have white barring and half will not. The white barring will appear equally on males and on females in this generation.
For how many offspring each way, the F1 x F1 cross will give something like this:
9/32 black
9/32 cuckoo (black with white barring)

3/32 lavender
3/32 lavender cuckoo (lavender with white barring)

3/64 red-and-black
3/64 silver-and-black
3/64 crele (red-and-black with white barring)
3/64 silver-and-black with white barring

1/64 isabella
1/64 lavender crele (isabella with white barring)
1/64 silver-and-lavender
1/64 silver-and-lavender with white barring

Crossing F1 to F1 is the only way I can see to get any Isabellas in the second generation, but they will only be about 1 chick in each 64, so you would have to hatch LARGE numbers of chicks to have very many of them.

From this set, I would not use the solid black or lavender chicks (which together make make 3/4 of the total). Some of the blacks and lavenders are carrying genes you would want, but others are not, and sorting them out is probably not worth the effort. The other colors (1/4 of the total) can be used to breed with the Isabellas to get higher rates of Isabella in later generations (these are all showing the recessive genes for not-solid-black, so breeding them to isabella or even to each other will give chicks that are still free of the solid black or lavender coloring.)

 

[JustAnotherWeirdo]

I'm going to answer in rougly backwards order, based on which ones have shorter or longer answers.


From the first generation mix of lavender and crele, you should get just black chicks. Later generations of the project can give some lavender chicks.

Selling them as lavender: probably yes, if you make it clear that they may carry the genes for other colors (so they should not be expected to breed true for solid lavender.) For people who just want pretty backyard layers, mixes will not be a problem. But they could be unwelcome in a pure lavender breeding flock.


Yes, if you breed pure lavenders with the lavender chicks that are mixes, they should produce some chicks that are pure lavenders (no genes for other colors/patterns), but they will probably produce some chicks do carry those other genes.

If you want to test-mate them to see, try crossing with crele again: a pure lavender should give just black chicks (or lavender, if the crele carries the lavender gene). A lavender that produces crele or isabella chicks, or silver-and-black or silver-and lavender, is obviously carrying the genes for those colorings.


Lavender rooster with lavender hens should produce just lavender chicks (unless they are carrying other genes, in which case you might get some isabellas or silver-and-lavender chicks.)

Lavender rooster with black hens should produce black chicks. If the hens are carrying the lavender gene, you will get some lavender chicks too. If the hens and rooster are both carrying genes for other colors or patterns, you might get chicks that are not just black or lavender.

Lavender rooster with crele hens should produce black sons with white barring, and black daughters with no white barring. The white barring in the sons will make them easy to recognize, but the daughters will probably look about the same as black daughters of the black hens. As they grow up, daughters of the crele hens may show leakage in their feathers, especially in the breast area, rather than being solid black all over. (Leakage does not tell you for sure which mother they had, because they might not have it, and daughters of the black hens might also show leakage. But leakage is much more LIKELY to happen in offspring from the crele hens.)



Unfortunately, it is going to take several generations and hatching large numbers of chicks before you have any isabellas. It will take time after that to build htem up to a reasonable number and be able to select for good traits in other respects (like body type and feathering).

This may be why there aren't any in your country yet, because creating them is a big project.


Basic points about the colors and genes involved:

Lavender is a solid black chicken, diluted by the lavender gene which is recessive.

Isabella is a red-and-black pattern, diluted by the same recessive lavender gene.

Crele is a red-and-black pattern with white barring. The barring is dominant and sex-linked. Being sex-linked means it is on the Z sex chromosome, so it is inherited differently in males (chromosomes ZZ) than in females (chromosomes ZW.) A rooster inherits Z from each parent, and give Z to each chick. A hen inherits Z from her father and W from her mother. She gives Z to each son and W to each daughter. That means barring cannot be passed from mother to daughter (no barring on the W chromosome), but it can go from mother to son, and from father to son or daughter.

Solid black is dominant over the genes that allow red-and-black patterns.

Crele and Isabella are genetically gold. Lavender can be, but I am going to assume that the original rooster is genetically silver because that seems to be pretty common. If I am wrong, your breeding will be a bit faster and easier, because each "silver" chick I predict will actually be gold.

With a lavender rooster and crele hens, yes it should be possible to produce isabella chickens with no white barring, but it will take several generations.

If you breed the lavender rooster to the crele hens, they should produce black daughters, and sons that are black with white barring.
All chicks will carry the lavender gene.
All chicks will carry the genes for a black-and-red color pattern, but it mostly doesn't show because the genes for black are dominant. They may have a bit of leakage (red or other colors), rather than actual solid black.
Those chicks can be called F1 (first generation of crossed chicks.)
I can see three different breeding paths to get from them to Isabella birds.

If you breed the F1 females back to the lavender rooster, you will get some black chicks and some lavender chicks, about 50% each way. None of the chicks will have white barring. About half of the chicks will carry the genes for black-and-red coloring (which is what you need to get isabellas), and the other half will not.
From this, you would not use the 1/2 of chicks that show black (rehome them, or keep them as layers but not breeders, or process them for meat.)
1/4 of the chicks are pure lavender and the other 1/4 look lavender but carry the genes you need for Isabella pattern. The trick is to sort them out.
Some of the lavenders might have yellow or white leakage. If so, breed them to each other, and you have a good chance of getting about 1/4 isabellas in their chicks.
Otherwise, keep all the lavender females you can, and a few of the lavender males. Crossing a lavender male to a crele hen will either give black chicks (like the F1 chicks), or it will give a 50/50 mix of black chicks and multicolored chicks ("multicolored" may be black-and-red or silver-and-red. Both the black chicks and the multicolored chicks will have white barring in the males but not the females.)
By testing the males one by one with the original crele hens, you can find a male who does carry the genes you need (produces some black-and-red chicks, with or without white barring.) Cross that male to his own sisters (lavender pullets), and you should get about 3/4 lavenders and 1/4 or 1/8 isabellas. If 1/8 are isabellas, the other 1/8 will have silver instead of the yellow/gold colors, and they can also be used to produce more isabellas in future generations. None of the chicks will have white barring.

Alternately, you can breed the F1 males back to the crele hens. You will get black chicks, red-and-black chicks, and maybe some silver-and-black chicks. All males and some females will have white barring, but you should get about 1/4 of female chicks that have no barring and do have a multicolored pattern (red-and-black or silver-and-black.)
Of those multicolored non-barred females, about half will carry the lavender gene, but you can't tell which ones they are. So cross all those females back to an F1 male (their father or another one.)
The females that do carry lavender will give chicks in four main colors:
black (carrying lavender)
lavender
isabella and silver/lavender coloring
red-and-black and silver-and-black coloring (carrying lavender)
The females with no lavender gene will give chicks that are black and chicks that are multicolored (red-and-black or silver-and-black.)

Isabellas are what you want. The silver-and-lavender ones are genetically just like isabellas except that they have silver when they should have gold. Breeding silver-and-black females with isabella males, or with red-and-black males that carry the lavender gene, should produce some isabella hens in the next generation.

Or, the third option, you can breed F1 males with F1 females.
You will get lots of black chicks, some lavender chicks, some multicolored chicks (red-and-black or silver-and-black), and probably a few isabella or silver-and-lavender chicks. For all of those colors, half of the chicks will have white barring and half will not. The white barring will appear equally on males and on females in this generation.
For how many offspring each way, the F1 x F1 cross will give something like this:
9/32 black
9/32 cuckoo (black with white barring)

3/32 lavender
3/32 lavender cuckoo (lavender with white barring)

3/64 red-and-black
3/64 silver-and-black
3/64 crele (red-and-black with white barring)
3/64 silver-and-black with white barring

1/64 isabella
1/64 lavender crele (isabella with white barring)
1/64 silver-and-lavender
1/64 silver-and-lavender with white barring

Crossing F1 to F1 is the only way I can see to get any Isabellas in the second generation, but they will only be about 1 chick in each 64, so you would have to hatch LARGE numbers of chicks to have very many of them.

From this set, I would not use the solid black or lavender chicks (which together make make 3/4 of the total). Some of the blacks and lavenders are carrying genes you would want, but others are not, and sorting them out is probably not worth the effort. The other colors (1/4 of the total) can be used to breed with the Isabellas to get higher rates of Isabella in later generations (these are all showing the recessive genes for not-solid-black, so breeding them to isabella or even to each other will give chicks that are still free of the solid black or lavender coloring.)

thank you so incredibly much for all the help an information!! I searched a lot and couldn't find anything containing even half of this. It certainly is a longer more difficult process than I thought but I really want to try it anyway and should be able to.

I assume that all of this should work the same if I have another flock of crele hens and a lavender rooster and breed their children with the ones from the first flock to avoid line breeding? This is mostly to avoid issues if I sell a few of the Isabella's and the new people decide to line breed them.

 

[NatJ]

thank you so incredibly much for all the help an information!! I searched a lot and couldn't find anything containing even half of this. It certainly is a longer more difficult process than I thought but I really want to try it anyway and should be able to.

I'm glad it was helpful

I assume that all of this should work the same if I have another flock of crele hens and a lavender rooster and breed their children with the ones from the first flock to avoid line breeding? This is mostly to avoid issues if I sell a few of the Isabella's and the new people decide to line breed them.

Yes, that should be fine. The genetics for any other lavender rooster, and any other crele hen, will probably be the same as the first ones. They have the same chances of matching my predictions, or of being different in a way I didn't expect.

 

[JustAnotherWeirdo]

I have returned with more questions since I have been thinking about this project a lot lately and want to make sure some of my understanding of these concepts are correct. Some of this is based off of what I’ve noticed about isabella Brahmas and my not so clear and thorough understanding of chicken genetics so I might have to be corrected on a lot of things

1. If I were to breed cuckoo isabella from crele and lavender would the process be much different and is it even possible?

2. With the brahmas it seems that you can breed partridge and isabel and then get splits which you then breed back to Isabel to get all Isabel chicks like with lavender x black chickens. Could you do the same thing with non-cuckoo isabel and crele orpingtons? Partridge x Isabel would probably be more ideal for this but we don’t have partridge orpingtons over here, only crele.

I assume that doing this (if indeed possible) would result in the chicks having barring if the parent was crele looking with recessive isabel gene? Would it be sex linked like the barring in F1 from your explanation on how to breed isabellas. Could the barring then be bred out of them if they do inherit it?

 

[NatJ]

1. If I were to breed cuckoo isabella from crele and lavender would the process be much different and is it even possible?

Definitely possible.

If you are trying to breed Isabellas without the barring, you will probably produce some with the barring while you work on it.

2. With the brahmas it seems that you can breed partridge and isabel and then get splits which you then breed back to Isabel to get all Isabel chicks like with lavender x black chickens.

Breeding splits back to Isabel should give a 50/50 mix of Isabel and Partridge in that case, not ALL Isabel.

Could you do the same thing with non-cuckoo isabel and crele orpingtons? Partridge x Isabel would probably be more ideal for this but we don’t have partridge orpingtons over here, only crele.

You could breed a non-cuckoo Isabel rooster to a crele hen and get sexlinked chicks: males will have white barring (crele) and females will not have the white barring (probably duckwing coloring.) Breed the females back to an Isabel rooster, and you should get a 50/50 mix of Isabel and duckwing chicks, with no barring on any of them.

I assume that doing this (if indeed possible) would result in the chicks having barring if the parent was crele looking with recessive isabel gene?

If one parent looks crele but carries the lavender gene, then breeding the chicks to an Isabel will give about a 50/50 mix of chicks that are Isabel (lavender gene) and chicks that do not.

If the mother is crele, she will give barring to her sons and not to her daughters.
If the father is crele, he will give barring to both his sons and his daughters.

Would it be sex linked like the barring in F1 from your explanation on how to breed isabellas. Could the barring then be bred out of them if they do inherit it?

Yes, sexlinked barring.

Yes, you can breed out barring in future generations, if you want to.

You can breed a barred hen to a not-barred rooster, and daughters will have no barring.

A cross of barred with not-barred will produce sons with one barring gene and one not-barred gene, no matter which parent had the barring. Those sons can be bred to not-barred hens, to get barred chicks of both sexes, and not-barred chicks of both sexes.

Any time you breed two parents with no barring, you will get chicks with no barring. So once you are rid of the barring, it will not reappear, unless you breed in more birds with barring.