Super Chocolate Egg Layer question

DustyLavender said:

I'm sorry to hear that.

It needs to be White leghorn to get 'Super(egg production)' in their name.

I only have rooster and from MPC and crossed him with F1 OE, ofspring lays same color as her mother. Wonder how chocolate my roo is...

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One parent does not have to be a leghorn to make a "super" chocolate or super blue egg layer. One parent just has tp be a production layer of white eggs. Several breeds fit the bill.

I realize this thread is mostly about the "Super Chocolates" but thought I'd chime in first about what a Leghorn mix (from our SBEL hen who is clearly heterozygous for the blue egg gene- otherwise the resulting pullet would lay a green egg) with a Welsummer roo produced-- the bottom row of brown eggs. The light green was from our F1 SBEL roo over an EE that lays light pinky brown eggs.



... But mostly about my "Super Blues" from MPC as others have mentioned them here. We ordered 2 pullets and a cockerel. One of the F1 SBELs lays a very light blue egg, the kind where you have to look at it just right to decide it's really blue (dead center), the other one you have to use your imagination to consider it approaching blue (2nd row from the left).



Both F1 SBEL girls are a year old now and they mostly lay MEDIUM eggs with the occasional large thrown in. They are consistently productive, so that's something at least.

We lost the F1 SBEL cockerel very young but managed to hatch out 4 F2 Super Blue chicks from the fertilized eggs immediately following his loss, and we got 2 cockerels and 2 pullets from that hatch. I only used the eggs from the nicer of the two blues.

One of the F2 SBEL cockerels earned a date with the hatchet. This doesn't seem to be an uncommon theme with the lines they used to create the SBEL cockerels- I lucked out on my F1 roo and got something close to an Ameraucana, while most got white leghorn looking cockerels that were not keepers due to attitude. I wasn't too fond of the other one either so he got a new home.

This whole winter and spring I've been eagerly awaiting my F2 SBEL pullets' first eggs, and finally the day came.

THEIR EGGS ARE GREEN. GREEN. GREEN. The only rooster in the flock was my F1 SBEL cockerel. The only other males were 4 week old babies still attached to their broody hen, so there's zero question of "maybe a different rooster got in" ... also not possible because it's a completely enclosed chicken run. And yes, I know these are from the F2 Super Blues, I watched them lay the eggs.

Here are the F2 Super Blue GREEN Eggs:



So I echo what other posters have said - after paying $24 or 26 per SBEL pullet and $16 for an SBEL rooster along with the shipping, to have the F2 SBELs produce GREEN eggs is .... well, let's just say I could have just bought a few more EEs with all that $$ and gotten the same end result of decent GREEN eggs.

Very frustrating.

dekel18042 said:

Some thoughts on your post. It doesn't surprise me at all what you said about the SBEL cockerels. The formula for a SPEL is blue egg layer X production white egg layer so there are several breeds you can use for the SBEL just as there are many ways to get anolive egger. I think MPC uses mostly white leghorns in their formula (after seeing their adult birds and hearing about temperament this seems the most likely.
My parents had white leghorns when I was a child and soon gave them up in favor of the brown egg layers (ROR) because we NEVER had a nice leghorn rooster. NEVER!!!!!!!
Last year I raised a clutch of super blues, Ameraucana X California grey (substituted this breed for the leghorn, yes I know originally there was leghorn in their background) but every cockerel had a nice temperament so all were placed.
And about the green eggs, you really need to make sure the blue line that is used really is a blue line and not a blue/green line.
Right now I have an incubator full of eggs that have more super blues like the original and some eggs that will now produce the F2 generation so it will be interesting to see what I get.
My eggs have ranged from some so pale they look almost white until placed next to a white egg to those that are a beautiful paler shade of robin's egg blue. Plus the girls are fantastic layers.

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Hi dekel, thank you for the reply.

That is the frustration- having trusted that the MPC "SBEL" line was blue-- as green would be counterproductive in that program-- which was not an inexpensive endeavor. Not to mention the time that goes into raising the original stock, then of course waiting for their eggs to hatch, raising the F2s up ... and a year later we're left with 2 F2s laying green. Pretty greens that stand out, but not blue.

At this point, while having lost the rooster below at a young age, at least I got a son I like very much. The odds of that son being double blue "should" be 25% but I doubt I'm that lucky... and the waiting begins all over with this new rooster and his chicks. At this point, if I someday find another (actual) blue egg in the nest box, I'll be thrilled to bits- in the meantime, green isn't the end of the world, but for the $$'s involved- well, I'm repeating myself.

Funny you should say California Greys - we picked a couple up in early spring - other than the laying capabilities, I figured they'd be good for test matings for the current rooster's genotype as they will be my only white layers.

The original rooster managed to give us 3/3 green laying daughters from brown laying hens, so that was nice- but his F2s daughters also gave us ... green. Sigh.

In the next few months I will find out if the Leghorn background of that hen affects all of her cockerels (or not, maybe I'll get all pullets, LOL)... or if it was just a bad combination with that particular rooster-- who was nothing close to a Leghorn.

This was our F1 SBEL roo:

So did anyone actually get a MPC Super Chocolate Egg Layer? I hatched a SCEL and a BCM at the same time. One got sick and I had to cull. I thought the SCEL was the remaining chick, but now I'm starting to wonder:

Are SCELs and Black Copper Marans identical or is this really the BCM?