Ideas for EE Project Colors....

[FreedomFarm13]

Hi! I've been trying to decide what my goals will be for my EEs, and I was hoping some of you fine folks could share the different EE project colors you've done, as well as the level of difficulty of each color, in your experience. Any tips and details of your experiences would greatly appreciated. If at all possible, if you could share how you achieved each color (breed and gender of each parent and how many generations it took to achieve breeding true (if applicable)) I would also appreciate that. Thanks in advance for all of your help, everybody!!!

 

[Wappoke]

If you want blue egg layers, cross blue egg layer female to a male that hatched from a blue egg. This does not ensure that the female offspring will lay a blue egg. If you know the pedigree of the male (only blue egg laying sisters, etc.) , this will vastly increase the odds of the offspring inheriting the genes needed for blue egg shell color. I would suggest using a male amerucana in the parent generation if you want blue egg laying offspring.

If you want to produce green and blue egg producers, then you will want to start with a blue egg layer and a brown egg layer. The odds favor that the initial cross will produce only green egg layers, depending on the genetics of the brown egg layer and if you hatch enough offspring some blue egg layers may be produced. Depending on your breeding regimen, you can make crosses that will produce blue and brown egg layers. You will want to stay away from leghorns in your crossing because they carry genes that inhibit the production of brown and blue egg shell pigments.

You may want to have a two pen system. One crossing pen produces blue egg layers and another pen produces green egg layers. You can use blue egg layers from the blue egg pen in the green egg pen. DO NOT place blue egg layers from the green egg pen with birds in the blue egg pen.

Remember the blue egg shell color gene is closely attached (linked) to the pea comb gene, so if you make crosses, males that have well-formed pea combs, most likely, carry two blue egg shell genes. The same is true for females. Males and females that have a weird looking floppy single/pea comb normally only carry one blue egg shell allele (gene) and a white egg shell allele. This floppy comb will be evident in the offspring if you cross a pea comb bird and a single comb bird.

If you use pea comb chickens and rose comb chickens in your crosses, you can follow the walnut comb in the offspring to determine which offspring carry a blue egg shell gene. The walnut comb ( with a high degree of probability) indicates the bird carries a blue egg shell gene. Rose comb offspring most likely do not carry the blue egg shell gene.

Shank and foot color is another issue, it would be best if you determine what color of shank and foot color you want. After this , I can explain how to obtain the goal. All the possibilities would require a small booklet on the subject.

Just one bit of information about shank color. Black legs can not be produced on a barred bird. If you want to produce a barred bird, do not pick black legs; it will not happen.

Plumage color is a complex subject and would require a book on the subject. I would suggest producing blue, black and splash or white birds. White would be the least complex to obtain.