A BALANCED BREEDING PEN -
To produce Navy topped and laced Blues

Should consist of a male described previously as the standard required colour and a female described as the standard colour.(Ie Male with Dark Navy Topy Colour and body lacing and Female with darker Navy Hackle and rich body colour with navy lacing)

Particular care must be taken to choose males that are a rich dark navy on the top and hackle and without rust or foreign colour in the hackles, back or saddle feathers, as this is likely to produce further discolouration in the resultant offspring,

Be sure that both sexes have clear distinct lacing on the body and that the body feathers do no cloud over so as to appear all dark grey with no lacing visible. Often patches of partially badly marked lacing appear on some specimens so care should be exercised to moderate the use of this fault.

Foreign colour such as rust or coloured flashing in the hackles of males will also affect the rich body colour of offspring and it will also be present in sisters of a male showing that fault, though not always visible. Remember that a sister of a badly coloured male will carry the same fault in her genetic make-up as her brother and vice-versa

TO PRODUCE UNLACED

The mating would consist of a male without the navy top colour, even shade throughout with no mealiness in feather and specifically no rust or foreign colour in hackle saddle or tail coverts

Female counterpart would be free from lacing and a pale even shade throughout with particular emphasis placed on the fact that the hackle should be as close as possible to the body colour, not a distinctly different shade of blue.

DILUTION OF LACING & DEPTH OF COLOUR

It stands to reason that to maintain a depth of colour in the body and a clarity of colour in feather lacing then the correct balance of matings must be used with closest to the standard colour required, being used on either side of the breeding pen.

Dilution of lacing and depth of ground color in these two factors often comes when breeders are tempted to use better typed birds of lesser colour quality in an attempt to improve the type.

Bear in mind that each time an inferior coloured bird without the lacing present is used, then the resultant offspring will have a diluted portion of the lacing gene in their make-up. Even if they do not always show the lack of it they will always have the propensity to reproduce a lesser quality colour.

However, if the breeder is forced to use a breeding bird of lesser colour quality,colour intensity can often be regained if the offspring is bred back to the correctly coloured parent the next season

FEATHER COLOUR FAULTS

MEALINESS
Is described as "Whole feathers containing any foreign colours in the form of streaks, blobs or patches giving the effect of multi-coloured blue feathers". This can often occur when two distinctly different colours of Blues are mated together and tend to produce non-acceptable show standard coloured birds. Mealiness also occurs from over use of Black in the breeding pen. Some effective ways to remove mealiness from future progeny is to:

a) Introduce white blood for one cross which can often remove streaks but will produce a paler bird (effective in Non Laced varieties as well) then take the progeny back to the laced parent.

b) Introduce splashed Wyandotte, to the Blue mating whereby the white factor in the splashed wyandotte assists in eliminating the mealiness of the resultant blue offspring.If you are able to use a splashed bird that has been bred from a Laced Blue mating,so much the better

c) Utilise a Blue to Blue Mating at least every second year securing a richness in colour in the breeding stock.Progeny from this mating can be mixed into the good typed birds that are showing colour faults.

BLACK STREAKS THROUGHOUT BLUE FEATHERS

This often occurs when breeders are continually mating Blue Pekins with quality Black Pekins in an attempt to improve the type. It is therefore possible by using one mating of Splashed white to Blue to assist in eliminating the black streaks. Ensure once again that offspring are mated back to the Blue of a rich sound colour & lacing the next season to retain the depth of colour Many breeders are of the mistaken opinion that by mixing with black they will increase the rich navy top colour. This can be misleading as whilst the offspring may in fact be darker on top the actual lacing component is starting to nbe diluted and whilst an even colour may be the result, over future generations dilution of the lacing is an inevitable side effect as well as the loss of depth of blue as the colour

THE VALUE OF SPLASHED WHITES AND BLACKS

Many breeders underestimate the value of the splashed white bird produced from Blue x Blue Matings.

Taking into account the above information, the value of the splashed white produced from say a Laced Blue x Laced Blue mating is high. This bird would carry the genes for lacing in its genetic blue component and could easily be utilised with a pure black Pekin to produce further laced blues.

My experience has led me to the conclusion that Blues of a more even shade are often produced from Black x Splashed white. Bear in mind that the black used does not necessarily have to be bred from a Blue x Blue mating and can easily be a high quality black male from another outside line. This male however, will not carry the laced gene so some back breeding would be necessary.

Progeny of course should be mated back to the existing blue laced birds for continuation of depth of colour retention.

Conversely splashed bred from non laced Blues will carry that non-laced trait so care must be taken when keeping records on the splashed progeny. From my experience, the same would apply with blacks bred from Blue X Blue matings when mated to splashed white females. It would be unwise to contaminate a Blue laced line with splashed or blacks bred from non laced lines.

RETENTION OF DEPTH OF COLOUR & LACING

The hardest possible task when breeding the laced Blue variety is to retain that lovely Rich pigeon Blue colour of an even shade with that desired perfect edged lacing.
One of the most successful ways I have found to do that is :

• continually scrutinise your breeding stock particularly the males for rich navy top colour and chest & Body lacing,
• retain daughters bred from good coloured males
• each year breed back to well laced birds male or female
• for preference,breed from blacks and splashed whites that have come from laced blue x laced blue matings for maximum results
• avoid where possible using birds with rust or foreign colour in the topcolour
• all Blue males top colour will bleach in the sun do not confuse this with badly coloured hackles.
• introduction of unrelated Black males or females will not automatically produce lacing as they most likely do not have the lacing gene.They will only act to dilute the lacing component and create a majority of fully dark-grey feathers in the first cross. If introduced blood has lacing in its background then you will have a better chance of getting laced chickens in the first generation rather than having to wait for the second generation offspring.

By David Plant