The following notes have been extracted from my experiences over the past 35 years in Breeding the following Blue Varieties, Old English Bantams, Pekins & more recently establishing a new gene pool of Laced Blue Langshan Bantams derived from Black Langshan x Blue Orpington

In this article I will endeavor to give the reader an insight into breeding Blues and how the Blue Laced variety is pivotal to the success of a Blue Pekin Line and how to sustain that colour

The breeding of the Blue and laced blue Pekin variety of bantam in Australia must be viewed in the context of Mendels theory as applied to the Blue Andalusian Fowl which is as follows:

Bateson & Punnet (1906) demonstrated that the Blue Andalusian fowl when mated together segregated into progeny of three colours, Blue laced, Black and Splashed white. Blue laced, the colour required for exhibition was shown to be the result of the impurity of a gene, Bl being present.

In R.C. Punnets book on Mendelism he explains that when the three various combinations of Blue plus Blue cross matings are made, the following results in colour distribution can be expected:

Because the following popular Blue varieties today have the same genetic make-up as the Andalusian they utilise the above principles of expected colour distribution. Among those breeds are the Blue Old English, Pekins , Leghorns, Orpingtons and Blue Laced Wyandottes as well as several other popular blue breeds. Mendels Theory and Punnets explanations are said to apply.

The description of the Blue Andalusion dictates colouring as follows:

"Clear Blue edged with distinct black lacing, not too narrow, on each feather, excepting the males sickles which are dark or even black and his hackles which are black with a rich gloss, whilst the female's neck hackle is rich lustrous black showing broad lacing on the tips of the feathers at the base of the neck. Undercolour is to tone with the surface colour."

The actual lacing on popular varieties in Australia tends more to be Dark Navy Blue where depicted as "black "in the Andalusian. Dark navy also relates to Neck hackles, back, tail coverts and sickles in the males and neck hackles in the females. My belief is that even in written descriptions of the Andalusian the colour was not Black but the very darkest of Blue.If it were a two-tone Black and Blue bird then the Mendels Theory of colour distribution would hardly apply

BLUE LACED OR UNLACED BLUE IS NOT A COLOUR THAT BREEDS TRUE

Many breeders when starting out often think that by mating two blues together that they will produce offspring all of a blue colour.The reason this does not occur is that the only ones produced from the mating of blue to blue, that breed true when mated together are splashed white and the black. In other words black mated to black will produce all black and splashed white mated to splashed white will produce all splashed white.

In fact the Blues that are produced from these matings will more often than not be a mixture of different shades of Blue.

"SELF BLUE" IS THE ONLY COLOUR THAT BREEDS TRUE TO BLUE

The Definition:
Self-blue is a shade of uniform Pale Blue throughout without edging to any of the feathers. The most distinct aspect of birds possessing this genetic colour makeup is that when they are mated together they will only ever produce 100% Blue offspring of a similar colour.
In any of the popular breeds mentioned herein it is incorrect to call any of them "self -Blue"There is no self- blue gene that has been developed in Australia at the time of writing.
The only self blue fowls presently in Australia is the Araucana and the Belgian Bantam none of which were originally developed in Australia themselves
Over many years people are still incorrectly calling pale Blue unlaced birds"self Blues".

The Standard
Because the Pekin standard in Australia allows the exhibiting of both the laced and the unlaced varieties Nature dictates that there are two pens of birds used in the breeding pens to produce the blue colour shades required to comply with the Standard

In terms of the laced Blue Pekin this colour descriptions used to describe a cockerel breeding line and the unlaced version is used to describe a pullet breeding line in some varieties. The un-laced version is usually of a lighter shade of blue due to the lack of Navy pigment in the female used., containing no navy edging to each feather. The females in particular are often described as “powder Blue” because of their soft all over light blue colour

Much confusion and poor results often occur when breeders mix the two lines and expect the laced variety to result from a cross between the two colours. Some lacing may occur but the cross reduces the effects of the lacing by 50% so partial or incomplete lacing is often seen on progeny from these matings and detracts from the birds overall appearance (i.e.by crossing laced with non-laced)

THE LACED GENE
For readers to fully appreciate the laced Blue Pekin they must firstly realise that the lacing produced on the feathers of the Pekin has arrived there because of a set of factors that have combined to produce the fine dark edged lacing around each feather. These are called genes and it is the genetic make-up of the parents of the bird that dictate whether the bird will be laced or not. In other words it is an inheritable feature carried from the parent stock and without the lacing gene, laced feathers will not miraculously appear.

It is virtually impossible to breed a correctly laced bird from parents that do not visibly exhibit the lacing factor, unless one or both of the parents have had the lacing gene in their background. Meaning that one or both of their parents may have the lacing component and the offspring have not exhibited the trait. One would need to be fully aware of the parentage of the birds being used in matings to be able to predict any sort of accurate result.

Birds that do not have a visible laced feather but are known to have had laced parentage will carry a diluted form oflacing. Breeding back to another bird with sound lacing will assist in producing lacing although it may take two generations of mating back to achieve the results required.

From my experiments in crossing Blue Laced Orpingtons and Black Langshan Bantams I have found that the Blue Laced Orpington has an extremely strong inheritable set of laced genes that has now carried on for 6 breeding seasons to still produce a rich blue ground colour complemented by fine dark edging in the Blue Langshan offspring.

By David Plant