Do Blue Laced Red Wyandottes breed true?

[Jtaylor33]

I am interested in adding BLR's to our program but recently learned they do not breed true. Is this true? If they don't breed true, and you breed BLR X BLR what other varieties do you get? I've hatched out these 2 this season... do you think they are a different variety? Also, do you think hen or roo?

 

[NatJ]

I am interested in adding BLR's to our program but recently learned they do not breed true. Is this true? If they don't breed true, and you breed BLR X BLR what other varieties do you get? I've hatched out these 2 this season... do you think they are a different variety? Also, do you think hen or roo?View attachment 3812862View attachment 3812863View attachment 3812864View attachment 3812865

Blue Laced Red Wyandottes will breed true for the "Laced Red" part (red in the middle of the feathers, lacing is a different color around the edge of each feather.)

The "Blue" part does not breed true. If you breed two that have actual blue lacing, you get some with black lacing, some with blue lacing, and some with splash lacing. In each case, the lacing (color around the edge of the feather) is the only part that changes color.

The color in the lacing will follow the predictions of any black/blue/splash chart. Just take the colors on the chart as referring to the lacing, not the entire bird. (This is because the blue gene affects black, so an entirely black bird goes blue all over, while a bird with black lacing just gets blue in the lacing.)

For your two chicks, the lower one looks to me like a Splash Laced Red (lacing is splash in color.) The lacing on the breast feathers looks especially nice: neatly around the edge of each feather. Some of the other feathers do not have such a nice lacing pattern, but it is pretty common for that can change as the chick grows older, so it might have nice lacing everywhere by the time it is fully mature.

The other chick, I can't tell if it has black, or if it has a dark blue, but either way it does not appear to have nice lacing at this time. That might change as it grows older, or it might not.

For whether those chicks are males or females, I am not sure. At the present time, the combs look the same size, but one is more red than the other. More red is more likely to be male, less red is less likely to be male. Same-size combs could mean they are both the same sex as each other, or it could mean they are still young enough that a male's comb has not grown big yet. So I would say to keep watching how they develop, because male vs. female will probably be much more obvious in a few weeks.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Blue can be highly variable with shades ranging from very pale grey to almost black. To me it looks like the top chick is a very dark blue and the bottom chick is a lighter blue.

Blue is caused by a dilution gene diluting black pigment to grey. One copy of the dilution gene causes birds to be blue, two copies dilute the black to "splash" (white to pale grey with flecks of darker grey). Since blue birds only have one copy of the dilution two blue birds have a 25% chance of hatching black chicks, 25% splash chicks, and 50% blue chicks.