LOOKING FOREWARD LOOKING BACK
By Karen Johns

I am writing this on request of a friend of mine in Lismore who is successfully breeding a line of lavender Pekins originally developed by me. Contemplating this request I have reread my article in Australasian Poultry of June / July 2000 as to where the lavender Pekin is now and what changes I would do to the article. I wonder if others have the lavender yet, has anyone exhibited them in some other place other than North Queensland? I do not think I would change any part of that article or regret any part of my love affair with creating new Pekin colours and patterns. Looking at old photos of the lavender of the year 2000 and comparing it to my birds today I don’t feel I have improved type greatly since then, I have just moved it from one line to another but I have improved its stamina.. I have been very disappointed in the type and understanding of the colour from what I have heard about of a show in Rosewood and seen at the Cairns agricultural show and I hope I haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings by saying so.

I shall briefly revise my AP 2000article on lavender genetics so the reader has a grasp on how the lavender Pekin was created. Lavender is a recessive colour gene. Meaning that a bird can be carrying the colour but not showing it because to have the lavender colouration a bird must have two sets of the gene, one from the father and one from the mother. This means if you mate a pure lavender bird to a pure black bird, the chicks will only be black but if you mate a chick back to its lavender parent you will in theory get 50% lavender or 2 chicks out of every 4. If you mate brother sister of the original mating one will get, in theory, 25% lavender or 1 in 4 chicks. Both parents must have the lavender gene to get a lavender chick. Most important to remember is that the bird with only one lavender gene cannot be identified unless it is mated to a bird that carries that gene and enough chickens are produced to cover aberrations in the above colour ratios.

My friend Richard Lay began the lavender Pekin in about 1992 by crossing lavender Belgium bantam to black Pekins. I remember him describing the first lavenders of the F2 generation as extremely good booted bantams, and he should know. Richard eventually gave me the bug and on the second attempt at giving me the birds in about 1994. I was hooked. That gave him more room to develop his successful Japanese (in lavender too), lavender Polish, Belgium bantam and silver grey Dorking bantams, to name a few.

The Pekins still had a long way to go, the roundness, the tilt foreword and the cushion were yet to develop. There were many handicaps like lack of knowledge that was to be “learn as you go” as I was only a beginner with poultry though I had much experience with other species of animals and plants since a young child, so I had learned patience. The first non-lavender quality Pekin out cross to a lavender developing Pekin always looked the best; the second cross to get lavender was often disappointing. The cushion was very slow to develop but by 1999 the lavenders were beautiful, but my biggest problem was at its worst – health. I believe at around this time a new strain of chronic respiratory disease had hit Australian poultry, I will not elaborate on my theories. Due to my haste I bred birds that should have been destroyed or more mature in the hens. I don’t believe in vaccinations and decided treatment was useless so it had to be the axe. My partner, who did most of the killing, said he has never known anyone to kill his/her best birds like I did. But that is the way it had to be and that is the way it still is. It worked very quickly with my Indian Game bantams but much slower on the Pekins, but then I am suspicious of just the smallest sniffle. My most important belief is to breed from the older bird that was a healthy survivor, no matter how poor the type as health is an inheritable trait.

Another of my major handicaps was moving house every couple of years, obnoxious landlords and real estate agents and a years break in 1996 in the Torres Straits when Richard looked after a pair for me and another batch left with a “caretaker”. Now it is 2004 and I have my first lavender chicks hatching after a year without them and some are safely in the Deep South. Without the assistance of many people who help me out when times are difficult and always willing to give me a bird back when in need, I would never have got the lavenders I have today. Out crossing and interweaving of lines and the death sentence all are very important parts in developing healthy fertile birds.

Lavender behaves as the colour black does. Where there is black in colour patterns it can be replaced with lavender, for example the coronation Sussex. The Columbian colour pattern of the Pekin bantam is the same as the light Sussex fowl is black on white. It still follows the same principles; a coronation bird must have both parents with the gene.

Lavender mated to lavender will give only lavender. Apart from slight shade variations all chicks are the same colour, lavender. Lavender does not have one black feather or specks of black on its feathers. Although I may yet be proven wrong on this but I doubt it. Lavender can have, however, white. It can have white hackles or it can be marked as stated before like a Columbian or Lavender pencilled like a Silver Pencilled. Lavender can be mixed with buff but this can cause imperfections in the feather. These imperfections are noticed on the secondary feathers of the rooster where feathers fail to develop properly and often fall out leaving a very scraggy Pekin. The buff can also cause brassy hackles, especially in lavender roosters. The buff shade can eventual change when mixed with lavender to a pink or beige colouration like that seen in the Porcelain Belgium. It can cause salmon breasts on pullets as one sees in the silver-grey Dorking.

Chicks that are lavender hatch lavender and yellow like one would expect a black. If it is solid lavender in colour one can expect a birchen type colouration (in Lavender instead of black) or a brown red (but brassy or straw coloured instead of red). If the lavender is going to be mottled like the normal black with white spots, it will be lavender with white spots, hatching with the down colour comparable to the black and white mottle chick. Yellow chicks can also hatch and change to lavender just like a wheaten, Columbian or Silver Duckwing would. Chicks can also hatch with the wild type markings but in the lavender variation of partridge or the silver pencilled.

There is no reason why a lavender hen cannot be equal to in quality to a black or white hen. This is because unlike buff or any of the colours that require specific markings as well as type, the gene can be slotted into any line of Pekins to the extent that it can suddenly reappear out of a line of blacks or whites. This is possible because a lavender line can be nicked into a black or white line the same way as any breeder upgrades their lines. What seems to be a perfect black can often throw perfect whites because black can hide white, so too black with lavender.

Alas lavender does have some problems that are usually not obvious in other colours. One such fault is the very obvious marks across the feather left by lice or mite attack on pinfeathers. Also many roosters tail feathers do not develop properly looking straggly. Some lavenders have a course harder feather others are perfectly soft as in the other colours

As yet I still have much to learn about the colour lavender, its behaviour, its possibilities and about others experiences. Judges have a lot to learn about lavender too for example what is lavender and what is a blue? Is the bird pure lavender? Are its hackles silver or white? How yellow should its beak and legs be? Can it be judged as a mottle or should separate mottle lavender be made? What should one call a lavender birchen - a Silver-grey? Should we call a lavender Columbian a Coronation like the Coronation Sussex? Should we use the names and the standards of the Belgium bantam’s colouration? These colours will appear now and then as black and white is used to upgrade and improve many colours for type. The lavender Pekin is in Australia of good type and the gene is hidden in many and you cannot tell the carrier from the noncarrier.

Too many people believe that lines are pure but they aren’t. To create and maintain pure lines requires great skill, perfect records, experience, large numbers, trustworthy help and many years. Even the best of them need to be upgraded. A breeder isn’t going to inform a buyer of what he /she has done, last thing they want to do is spoil an illusion or pass on his/her secrets. Well that is if anyone would understand them or listen to them or they have the patience to tell because they have said it a thousand times before, but no one listens or understands. Or cares. Most buyers seem to just want to win prizes with minimum effort or skite about whose “lines” their birds come from and sell the offspring for the same price or more than they paid for the parents. Am I too cynical?