I've posted some information and photos in other topics about the "lavender silver" variety of Ameraucanas I started creating in 2015. I'm starting this topic dedicated to lavender silvers to try to have the info and photos in together in one place to reference.
It is an easy variety to make by just crossing a silver male over lavender females producing mostly black looking offspring. Then cross the F1 generation birds among themselves to produce some lavender silvers. Theoretically only 1 in 4 of these F2 birds will be lavender silvers and so there are many rejects.
The first photo shows the four chick phenotypes that can show up in the F2 birds. 1st is a over melanized (too black) silver, then a lavender, a black and finally the keeper...a lavender silver. The rejects/culls aren't kept to breed from due to any unknown genes they may be hiding.
The lavender gene (Lav) dilutes black feathers (eumelanin) to the color called lavender and the same lavender gene also dilutes red feathers (pheomelanin) to the color called isabella. Since silver females have salmon breast feathers that are kind of reddish, lavender dilutes them to kind of a pinkish color.
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