Best Guesses for Crossbred Rooster

Not sure what mixed breed this rooster is. He's either offspring from my birds or part of a dozen "olive eggers" eggs I hatched out at the same time last year.

My eggs were Silver Grey Dorking rooster on Sicilian buttercup, Delaware, Welsummer, White Crested Black Polish, or Buff Polish (or SGD hens, but it's obvious he's not pure SGD).

The eggs from the olive egger eggs were Cream Legbar (I think) on Silver Spangled Appenzeller Spitzhauben, Silver Laced Cochin, and a few others. I'm mainly curious as to if I put him with my green and dark brown egg layers if they'll produce hens that also lay green eggs?

Spitzhauben/Legbar mix. It's the only thing that would produce the white earlobes, crest, barring and spangling.

I could see him being a Cream Crested Legbar cross with Spitzhauben...because of the comb...."v" is incomplete dominant and I could believe the over large Legbar comb combined with the Spitzhauben comb might produce something looking like that.

Or he is Spitzhauben with something else.

Or he is CCL with something that created a duplex type modified comb....since you gave me the option of Spitzhauben...I went there.

If CCL/Spitz, he would have one blue gene and the other would be white as the Spitzhaubens are white layers.

That means if you place him over brown egg layer or dark brown egg layer hens, mathematically you'll get 50% green to dark green (depending on how deep a brown layer the hen is) and 50% plain jane brown or light tint.

Note, you really wouldn't breed a Spitzhauben for olive eggers as they have neither the blue gene nor dark brown gene desirable.

CCL is a common breed used in olive eggers...ETA...but diluting it with Spitz further complicates your goals for olive or green.

LofMc

x2 on Lady's post above, she covered things nicely.

Lady of McCamley said:

I could see him being a Cream Crested Legbar cross with Spitzhauben...because of the comb...."v" is incomplete dominant and I could believe the over large Legbar comb combined with the Spitzhauben comb might produce something looking like that.

Or he is Spitzhauben with something else.

Or he is CCL with something that created a duplex type modified comb....since you gave me the option of Spitzhauben...I went there.

If CCL/Spitz, he would have one blue gene and the other would be white as the Spitzhaubens are white layers.

That means if you place him over brown egg layer or dark brown egg layer hens, mathematically you'll get 50% green to dark green (depending on how deep a brown layer the hen is) and 50% plain jane brown or light tint.

Note, you really wouldn't breed a Spitzhauben for olive eggers as they have neither the blue gene nor dark brown gene desirable.

CCL is a common breed used in olive eggers...ETA...but diluting it with Spitz further complicates your goals for olive or green.

LofMc

Click to expand...

X3 on LofMc's post.

Thank you for your response! Guess it's time to start looking for a better rooster.

Lady of McCamley said:

I could see him being a Cream Crested Legbar cross with Spitzhauben...because of the comb...."v" is incomplete dominant and I could believe the over large Legbar comb combined with the Spitzhauben comb might produce something looking like that.

Or he is Spitzhauben with something else.

Or he is CCL with something that created a duplex type modified comb....since you gave me the option of Spitzhauben...I went there.

If CCL/Spitz, he would have one blue gene and the other would be white as the Spitzhaubens are white layers.

That means if you place him over brown egg layer or dark brown egg layer hens, mathematically you'll get 50% green to dark green (depending on how deep a brown layer the hen is) and 50% plain jane brown or light tint.

Note, you really wouldn't breed a Spitzhauben for olive eggers as they have neither the blue gene nor dark brown gene desirable.

CCL is a common breed used in olive eggers...ETA...but diluting it with Spitz further complicates your goals for olive or green.

LofMc

Click to expand...

Agreed

sailingleaf said:

Thank you for your response! Guess it's time to start looking for a better rooster.

Click to expand...

You're welcome.

sailingleaf said:

Thank you for your response! Guess it's time to start looking for a better rooster.

Click to expand...

I didn't have time this morning to give you this chart (had to have time to look it up in my bookmarks)...it is over simplified, but a breeder I trust recommended it to follow.

Color egg chart genetics:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/273489/lightbox/post/14660804/id/6710899

Egg genetics are interesting. Look to where you want to go for egg color, and choose the best parent stock to get you there. Typically that means using pure stock so that the math is more manageable...the further you get away from both parents having pure color genes, the faster you dilute your coloring in your generations making it harder to get where you want to go.

An egg shell starts as base white. If there is blue genetics (2 genes possible), then the shell is imbedded with blue pigment as bile is picked up and kicked back into the shell process. Crack open a blue egg, and you will see a blue color inside as the shell itself is blue.

If there is brown genetics, then a brown wash is laid over the egg shell as it goes further down the tract, literally like a layer of paint laid onto the shell. Brown is complicated genetically, taking likely 13 genes or more to produce. Really dark brown layers, on the 7 or 8 scale, will often lay less frequently as the egg is literally receiving more wash as it goes slower through the tract. If the egg is freshly laid, you can often scratch off the brown pigment with your nail. Open a brown egg, and you see white shell on the inside. I make sure my nests have soft bedding so that my dark layers do not scratch up the color as they are laid.

A white shelled egg becomes brown from the brown wash. A blue egg becomes green with the brown wash. A blue egg becomes olive green with a dark brown wash.

If your goal is olive eggers, then I've read (in preparing for my own project), having the rooster provide the dark layer gene gives better results for deeper color. I've had local breeders confirm to me that their deeper olive eggers come from the rooster being the dark layer over the blue gene hen.

Dark layer roo over blue layer hen will give you F1 (first generation) olive (with 1 blue gene and brown wash genetics).

Breed back the dark layer roo over F1 olive will give 50% brown (various shades, probably darker) and 50% dark olive green. That's where genetics come in. If you only start with 1 blue gene, you dilute that out too quickly so that deepening your olive becomes mathematically more unlikely (25% F2).

Your CCL/Spitz isn't worthless...he does have the ability to shade your blues a bit, which is probably why he was created. Someone may have been trying to get a "sapphire" blue....light blue layer. You could keep breeding back to blue layers and green layers to see if you get a sapphire or even a spearmint (see chart above).

His down fall is that he only has 1 blue gene which means, as said before, that will dilute out pretty quickly (by F2).

This project is close to my heart as I'm starting with a dark brown layer roo (Barnevelder) with infusing a dark Splash Marans (scale 7) and Cream Legbars (2 blue genes) to hopefully create some really nice shades of olive and green as well as color coding my chicks feathers....Blue Laced dark layers and Black Partridge Olive Eggers. I also have one Isbar/Marans hen that I want to breed to my Barnie to produce F2 dark olive with a black feather. I'm waiting for my hens to begin laying after the winter to start producing my first F1 for shades of green and olive.

Good luck with your project. Nice roosters are usually pretty reasonably priced and can be the best purchase for the dollar for a project.

LofMc

Thank you, the chart is very helpful. I'm not sure where I want to go with the breeding program, but I have a cousin with a couple of young children who want to get a couple of chickens off me next time I hatch some out. I thought it'd be kind of neat for them to get colored eggs.

I'll have to spend more time studying this...I wasn't originally going to go with a colored egg program, but I ended up putting my SGD rooster into the freezer because of his nasty attitude and wanted to try a different route for a while.