Little help with identity :)

Jculpepper said:

I know!!!! I can't wait He hatched from a blue egg.

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You'll be able to make your own EEs, which is really cool! I can technically create EE bantams with my Wheaten Ameraucana boy and any others of my bantam girls.

~Alex

Jculpepper said:

I also have barred rocks, RIR & Black sexlinks. I just got the EE Roo and can't wait to start breeding to see what they will turn out like

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Looks like you've got a really fun project started there.

Just some clarification, in case you didn't know, you won't be creating EE's. You will have some really pretty and fun barnyard mixes.

Your EE rooster, likely received just 1 blue egg shell gene (there are 2 possible to inherit from parents).

That means he will have a 50% chance of fathering green egg shell layers (if brown layers used) and 50% plain brown shell layers as he likely has just 1 gene. (He may have no blue egg shell genes, but he has a pea comb and enough signs of Ameraucana left that I think it is safe to assume he likely has 1 blue gene).

The feather colors will get interesting between the RIR and your roo. You should see some fun red patternings and partridging. You'll probably get black with the BSL's, but possibly some pretty red bleed throughs.

What you won't get are EE's as Easter Egger is not a breed but a hybrid already. You will be breeding hybrid to hybrid, so you will get barnyard mixes. (Fun and interesting birds).

The more you breed away from the original Ameraucana genes in the original EE hybrid (pure Ameraucana over any other pure breed), the more you dilute out the blue genes for coloring. You will be getting very pretty, fun, barnyard mixes with more and more likelihood of brown eggs the further you breed away from the EE.

Your EE boy and your EE girl will have a good chance to recover the blue genes as you already know she lays a blue egg...and with assumption your boy has 1 blue gene. That means, if I run the Punnett square correctly, you'll likely get 50% blue/green, 25% deeper blue/green, 25% brown or white (depending upon some other genetics that include the brown wash or not).

If you are going for egg colors, I would breed your two EE's, then keep breeding back their progeny (daughters to father) for 2 or 3 generations (not breeding those that lay brown eggs). You may recapture some solid blue layers again.

Just my thoughts,

LofMc

very informative

You rock!!!! Thank you for that info! I was wondering if I even wanted to breed him to the rest of my flock or not! I just added a Welsummer and Cuckoo Maran to my mix! I really think this project is going to be lots of fun Would love to come out with Olive layers!

You are welcome. This project is close to my heart as I am going for olive eggers in my project using a Barnevelder roo over Cream Crested Legbars and then blue laced dark layers with a splash Marans.

Your boy over Welsummers and Cuckoo Marans will produce 50% olive eggers and 50% brown layers (probably middle brown as deep brown over regular brown usually produces a tone in between...the genetics for brown is complicated with likely 13 genes involved).

Fun fact, depending on how dominant white your boy is (he looks more wheaten or salmon or cream with incomplete columbian than anything...I've not got feather genetics down all the way yet), placing him over your Barred birds should produce seeable sex links....the boys solid body with white head dot, the girls solid body no head dot....most likely black as the solid color unless your boy has wheaten, then golden rod yellow may hide the dotting. So with the Cuckoo Marans you should see at hatch your girls vs boys which will help the olive egger program. Breed those olive girls back to the roo and you should get a brighter or deeper green/olive in the 2nd generation (50%).

I'll link my favorite articles that helped me in my project for breeding for egg color...I'm still working at getting all the genetics down especially feather patterning but for me right now that is secondary to egg color....but feather patterning genetics can work for you in identifying your mixes by glance and save a lot of banding.

Feather calculator
http://www.breedbook.org/?action=geneticscalculator&tab=CHICKEN

Egg color (also work through their article base for general genetics)
https://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/gms1-genetics-of-egg-color/

You have been very helpful!!! Thank you sooooo much!!! My hubby thought I was a little nuts for wanting to do this, but now he is excited