Hatching chicks

biscuit7

Songster
8 Years
Jul 25, 2015
49
16
109
Missouri
This may end up being a long thread but here we go. A few weeks ago our dog broke her chain and killed 10 of our 20 chickens (sadly all hens, 9 of which hadn't started laying yet). Prior to this incident we were fine with our flock and had no intentions of adding on. Now that we are down to 6 hens and 4 roosters - some of which will probably have to go - we are considering hatching some eggs using an incubator. Our favorite chicken (my husband thinks she is the smartest one), which I call black chicken, is potentially some sort of americana or Easter egger and maybe ostrelorp mix. That's my own uneducated guess. She lays light blue, almost white eggs. All of our roosters are rhode island reds. If we incubate only her eggs, will all of the chicks be the same mix or how does that work? Thanks in advance! :)

P.S.- I have added a photo of her below if you want to give a guess as to what she is. Originally when we got her a few months ago she was solid black. She is molting now and seems to be turning brown.

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If you hen is not a pure bred as you suspect she will not breed true...

You will probably get a very light greenish/grey egg crossing her blue egg gene with the brown roos, but since she is not pure she might also be carrying the recessive white egg gene as well and thus you could get light brown eggs as well...

As for looks of the chicks, since she is likely not pure you could end up with countless variety, or similar looking chicks depending on how impure/pure she is...

Also consider that hens can retain sperm for about 3-4 weeks, so the chicks could be from all 4 roos and thus vary slightly with their individual traits as well, but since they are pure it will only be small differences they contribute...
 

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