Color genetics in mixed flock

[VigilanteFarms]

I have a good basic understanding of color genetics but I'm completely new to applying it to chickens. I've been out of chickens for about 8 years and am trying to plan my new flock. I have limited space this time so I can't have a bunch of individual pens for different breeds. I have some favorite breeds and colors I'd really like to have this go round but in a mixed flock. I'd still like to hatch some neat colored babies so before I actually decide on chickens I wanted to try and figure out what kind of results I might get from the breeds/colors I'm considering.

My biggest concern is that I don't want to hatch a bunch of plain, black, red, or white birds. I understand I probably won't get nice clean patterns, I just don't want a bunch of bland looking birds.

For starters, I'll list out the breeds and colors I'm considering. I'd like to know which breed and/or color that you would choose as a rooster to get the best results with the rest of the breeds/colors being hens. Why would you choose that one? (I may have up to two roosters, preferably one of them a frizzle) Would you completely eliminate any colors from my list that would muddy things up? Are there any breeds/colors you would add that might make things interesting? Would you switch any colors to a different breed in the list?

I'm probably going to have a million and one questions leading off of this but I've got so many that I don't know where to start so maybe this will give me some direction.

The list: (All Bantam)
Buff Laced Polish
Mille Fleur D'Uccle
Crele OEGB
Porcelain OEGB
Blue/Splash Silkies
Cochins (maybe self blue, mottled, GL)
Salmon Faverolles (maybe blue salmon too)

My first thought is I'd like to have a frizzled buff laced Polish as a rooster to go over the rest of them as hens.

 

[iwjack6]

No comment except to say I was going to write a very similar thread today! Looking forward to reading some answers

 

[Willawong Hill]

I would play with the KippenJungle chicken colour calculator.

I think the issue with a lot of differnt patterns is that a lot are recessive so if you breed two different patterns together you get a lot of solids in the F1 as you don't have enough genes of anything to make it show up. I would like to do something similar (love lots of different colours in my yard and am getting a mix of colour hatching eggs in pekins) but after looking at the calculator i think if i actually want to end up breeding (i think i might go the easy route and just buy all the interesting ladies i want already bred) i would need to narrow things down a bit otherwise it seems a bit like mixing all the paint colours together- you just get a muddy brown instead of a rainbow.

I think you could do a blue (not self blue/lavender)/black/splash fairly easily as a mix, and i think mille fleur and porcelain have a lot of similar genes too, perhaps even with a mottle so you might get something there, but laced and mottled together will probably end up plain until you have two laced and two mottled genes together. Frizzle is dominant though so anything frizzle crossed with smooth feather should give you half frizzled offspring, so that will add some interest, same with feathered legs. i'm not sure how dominant polish crests are, but silkie feathers are definately recessive so you'd have to breed two carrying silkie genes to get your silkie feathering back again after F1. Again, hopefully someone with better chicken genetics knowledge can help you out properly.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

It all really depends on what you want, what you consider a pretty chicken. In my opinion, if you know the genetics of your chickens pretty well, it’s hard not to get a pretty mutt. But then again, I’m biased. I love the smutty/messy/incomplete patterning a lot of mutts have.
Those crosses should give you a lot of color in the offspring. However, I would use a crele OEGB, gold laced polish, and/or a blue salmon faverolles as a rooster.
Mottled, black/blue/splash, and lavender will all produce mostly solid colored offspring in the first generation (though if they’re crossed to laced or self buff the offspring will usually have a lot more leakage).
Lavender (self blue) and mottling are both recessive genes. They’ll disappear in the first generation unless you breed them together or breed a chicken carrying the recessive gene to another carrying or expressing the gene. So mille fleur x black will be all black offspring with red leakage in the first generation, but if they were bred back to the Mille fleur parent half of those offspring would be mottled.
Here are a few mutts I’ve had.

Serama x Mille fleur d’uccle (she’s mottled because her serama parent also had mottling)

Blue rooster with a single copy of the barring gene and silver leakage

A pretty mutt roo of unknown parentage

Black roo with red leakage (a lot of black crosses turn out to be almost all black)

A buff x black hen from the internet (this cross will usually produce offspring with a lot of leakage, unlike many other black crosses)

A link to a thread of Mille fleur x silver laced crosses:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/seuccle-sebright-duccle-rooster.458938/.

 

[Willawong Hill]

That's great, love the pic examples!