Gold Laced Splash Orpington

[ColtHandorf]

Papa's Poultry has them (project).

Which was my point. And those don’t look very good to me when I last looked regarding type, etc. Definitely still a project. I was curious if someone had correct BLR English Orps I hadn’t seen. But I can’t imagine the headache taking a project bird to use in a project.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Which was my point. And those don’t look very good to me when I last looked regarding type, etc. Definitely still a project. I was curious if someone had correct BLR English Orps I hadn’t seen. But I can’t imagine the headache taking a project bird to use in a project.

Point taken.

 

[Galina121]

So after trying 2 batches of eggs, nothing hatched. So I’m going to give up & try a different route. I think I can get some Golden Laced chicks. I’m going to breed any of those hens to my Splash rooster. I know I’ll get blues to start & I know that the lacing genetics are weird. I’m assuming it’s just a matter of breeding the most Laced back to one another, then getting the splash (somewhat laced) & just breed them until I’m happy.
I have no idea how many generations that will be though. I don’t really understand how lace works.

 

[ColtHandorf]

So after trying 2 batches of eggs, nothing hatched. So I’m going to give up & try a different route. I think I can get some Golden Laced chicks. I’m going to breed any of those hens to my Splash rooster. I know I’ll get blues to start & I know that the lacing genetics are weird. I’m assuming it’s just a matter of breeding the most Laced back to one another, then getting the splash (somewhat laced) & just breed them until I’m happy.
I have no idea how many generations that will be though. I don’t really understand how lace works.

So if that is what you're going to do, It would be easier to do it the other way. Can you get Splash hens and a Golden-laced Rooster?

Too many color combos to snip them all. Here's a link to the results. Hopefully that works.

http://kippenjungle.nl/chickencalculator.html

I also realize I did that with Silver-laced genetics because that's what I'm working with. Substitute Gold-lacing and it should work the same. Cross the blue or splash daughters back to the male to strengthen the lacing. I have multiple Silver-laced males just so I can do these and them not be bred back to their fathers.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I believe this is the correct link for a Gold-laced Rooster x Splash hens.

http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html?mgt=E:e^b/e^b,Pg:Pg/Pg,Co:Co/Co,Ml:Ml/Ml&fgt=E:E/E,Bl:Bl/Bl

 

[NatJ]

I’m assuming it’s just a matter of breeding the most Laced back to one another

That could work, although breeding back to your original laced ones would probably work even better. Just make sure you have at least one blue or splash bird in each pairing, and you can keep breeding back to the laced ones until you've got good lacing.

Then take two blue-laced and breed together to get splash laced.

I have no idea how many generations that will be though. I don’t really understand how lace works.

If you start with some birds that have good lacing, and cross to the splash rooster, I'm guessing the first generation will look mostly-solid blue. Crossing those back to the laced hens will probably give 1/4 black, 1/4 blue, 1/4 poorly black-laced, 1/4 poorly blue-laced. If you cross the best of the blue-laced back to the original laced hens, I'm guessing you'll get some decent lacing in the next generation, with the chicks evenly split among blue-laced and black-laced.

You might have some birds show up with silver instead of gold, because black/blue/splash chickens are sometimes genetically silver. If so, just hatch even more chicks so you can find enough gold ones.

Of course, you're likely to be eating or selling a lot of chickens along the way!

 

[Galina121]

Wow thanks! That’s kinda overwhelming but I think it’s doable. I have Splash hens & a rooster.
Now why is it that in the original pairing I want a Laced over splashed hens vs a splash over Laced hens? I know with chickens sometimes that matters, I just don’t always know when.

 

[NatJ]

Now why is it that in the original pairing I want a Laced over splashed hens vs a splash over Laced hens? I know with chickens sometimes that matters, I just don’t always know when.

Probably so you can get them pure for gold, and not have silvers showing up.

Gold/silver are on the Z sex chromosom. A rooster has two Z chromosomes, a hen has ZW.

So a gold (laced) rooster will produce daughters with gold on the Z chromosome they get from him. (The W from their mother doesn't have gold or silver.) If you then breed those daughters back to him, all of the future generations will be pure for gold.

Splash rooster (if he is genetically silver) will produce silver daughters (silver on their only Z chromosome). Sons will be split silver/gold, because they get one Z chromosome from each parent. Crossing those split sons back to the gold laced hens will give 50% offspring pure for gold, 50% with silver (both genders this time.) You can cull the silver ones, but you'll have to hatch approximately twice as many chicks to get enough gold ones.

So the Gold Laced Rooster saves you hatching & culling all those silver chicks. (His sons will be gold/silver split, but that will not matter if you are breeding the daughters back to the father. The sons won't be used in that case.)

 

[ColtHandorf]

I have no idea how many generations that will be though. I don’t really understand how lace works.

So when I used the calculator for the Silver-laced x Blue pairing, if I bred the F1 blue daughters back to their Black Silver-laced father, then I had a 1/64 chance to produce a correctly laced Blue Silver-laced Orpington. Should be the same for Gold-laced, but it's a numbers game. I only breed the best lacing from each subsequent generation back to the Laced parent.

Now why is it that in the original pairing I want a Laced over splashed hens vs a splash over Laced hens? I know with chickens sometimes that matters, I just don’t always know when.

That's pretty simple to explain. Let's say you did it the other way around. Splash rooster onto GL hens. You get a bunch of babies that will be blue. Some may have a tiny bit of lacing. See this F! hen for example. She shows a bit of lacing in her hackles.

You don't just want to breed the siblings from the F1 cross together. That's going to get you a chance for Black, Blue, and Splash, and lessen your chances of getting a bird with the correct pattern genes to show lacing. You'd want to breed back to the parent generation. As you've elected to use laced hens in this scenario, that means you're limited to the "best" F1 cockerel. It will take longer, in my opinion this way.

My way, where you cross a laced cock onto the solid hens means you can cross all the F1 daughters back to their father (or uncle or another unrelated laced male) and greatly increase your chances of producing the birds you're wanting. In each subsequent generation (F2, F3, F4, etc.) cross the blue females back onto a pure Laced male. All your black babies will be culls but in 4-6 generations you should have the pattern gene for lacing locked in so you're only getting correctly laced birds. After that you can cross Blue Gold-laced together to get Splash Gold-laced if that's the desired outcome.

 

[Galina121]

Y’all are so awesome
Thank you so much. I’m excited, this has the potential to be a really fun & rewarding project.