Cream Legbar X Easter Egger

SlipsWife

Songster
6 Years
Mar 10, 2013
808
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Odessa, Texas
I'm wanting to breed our EE's. We only have one hen right now and she lays pretty green eggs. I've read that if a chick hatches from a brown egg, the blue gene has been lost and for best results, if going for green/blue eggs, to not use a chick. If I'm remembering/understanding that correctly, then I wouldn't want to use an EE rooster that has been hatched from a brown egg.

Since all of our EE roosters are from a hatchery, I don't know what color of egg they came from. My theory is to use a CL over our EE pullets/hens to keep the blue egg gene strong.

Am I on the right track? Since EE are considered 'mutts', would I still list the offspring of the CL x EE as EE's when selling them?


The first 2 pictures are of our 6 week old EE pullets (Cackle) and the 3rd picture is our bantam EE hen (Privett) and then last picture shows green eggs from our hen. (we only wash when we're getting ready to use them)



 
I'm wanting to breed our EE's. We only have one hen right now and she lays pretty green eggs. I've read that if a chick hatches from a brown egg, the blue gene has been lost and for best results, if going for green/blue eggs, to not use a chick. If I'm remembering/understanding that correctly, then I wouldn't want to use an EE rooster that has been hatched from a brown egg.

Since all of our EE roosters are from a hatchery, I don't know what color of egg they came from.

Thats not correct, Say if you cross your Cream Legbar or Ameraucana rooster to a brow egg shell pullet, guess whats going to happen? all of the progeny(F1s) will carry one copy of the blue egg shell gene, so they will lay blue/green eggs, now if you cross this females with a brown or white egger rooster you would have only 50% chance in obtaining more blue/green eggers, BUT the task is ALOT easier if you use Easter Egger or Ameraucana because the Blue egg shell gene is linked to the Pea Comb ver close and any hen hatched with pea comb will have about 96% chance of laying green/blue eggs
 
Thats not correct, Say if you cross your Cream Legbar or Ameraucana rooster to a brow egg shell pullet, guess whats going to happen? all of the progeny(F1s) will carry one copy of the blue egg shell gene, so they will lay blue/green eggs, now if you cross this females with a brown or white egger rooster you would have only 50% chance in obtaining more blue/green eggers, BUT the task is ALOT easier if you use Easter Egger or Ameraucana because the Blue egg shell gene is linked to the Pea Comb ver close and any hen hatched with pea comb will have about 96% chance of laying green/blue eggs

So I should be safe keeping on of the EE roosters and using him as long as he has a pea comb? Which, all of them do, so it would then be deciding which one to keep based off of feather coloring.

If my pullet/hen is already laying blue/green, would it still be ok to use the CL rooster? I'm getting 4 CL pullets and 1 CL cockerel tomorrow, between 5-11 months old. They don't have crests, and I honestly don't plan to breed them to sell chicks. The only reason I would hatch any eggs from them is to keep blue layers in our small flock. The biggest reason I'm getting the cockerel is for the EE pullets.

I don't really want to keep 2 roosters but it won't be an issue if we do. I don't want to breed and EE cockerel to the CL pullets/hens, if I do end up hatching CL eggs, I want them to be CL only. On the EE eggs, I don't care which rooster/cockerel I use as long as I'm keeping the eggs from going brown. We have brown layers and that's not what I'm wanting EE for.

So, would it be best to keep 2 roosters, one CL and one EE and keep them with their hens? Or would it be ok to keep the CL with the EE, just knowing we would probably lose the rose comb, but the blue egg gene is still there.

Chicken genetics totally stump me! I usually catch onto things quick, genetics are the exception to this rule, shhhh don't tell my husband...
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Also, here are the EE cockerels we would be deciding who to keep from. There are 2 black/white, 2 red/brown and 1 white. The white one is my favorite personality wise so far but his legs aren't very dark and I would really like a few more dark pullets, that is if she lays a pretty egg. Any suggestions on who might be the best choice?



 
I don't really want to keep 2 roosters but it won't be an issue if we do. I don't want to breed and EE cockerel to the CL pullets/hens, if I do end up hatching CL eggs, I want them to be CL only. On the EE eggs, I don't care which rooster/cockerel I use as long as I'm keeping the eggs from going brown.

you dont need to keep any of the EE roosters, aslong as you have EE pullets with pea combs all of the Female chicks will lay blue/green eggs as long as they have pea combs..

now you can keep the CL Males and cross them to EE or CL pullets or both and this will always produce blue egg layers
 
Would a cream legbar roo produce any chicks with an ee that would be sexable as a chick?
Because EE are already mixed breeds you cant always be certain of their genetic make up, therefore no a CL male would not make dependable sex link chicks. You can however cross a CL male(which is gold based) to a silver based female to create Red Sexlinks.
 
Just stopping by to admire your lovely assortment of EE chicks who of course by now aren't youngsters anymore. Where did you get them? What did you end up doing in terms of keeping the roos and breeding for the blue gene? Someone dumped an EE cockerel similar to your lighter colored one in my yard last year and he has grown into a handsome and lovely-tempered young fellow. I have several EE hens and am picking up two more old EE ladies this afternoon that are rumored to still lay the occasional egg, so I may pen them together (all my chickens currently free range as a massive group) in order to collect some of their fertile eggs for hatching. My girls are all laying distinctly light green eggs and I would really like to breed for a bluer shell.
 
Very interesting. I'd love to see an update! . I have a bantam EE rooster and a CL hen. I want to hatch some eggs and see what I get too. I'm thinking they'll be small due to both of their sizes. Any thoughts? Here is my rooster, Jupiter:

 

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