Easter Eggers-What breeds do YOU prefer to cross your Ameraucanas with?

[QuailQT]

I just bought a pair of true Ameraucanas last month that I'm very excited about. I've hatched a couple of chicks and hope that they do well, so I can sell some of those chicks later on.

Right now, I'm getting a lot of requests for Easter Egger chicks. I have some adult hens already that I've used, but have no idea what crosses were used to produce them since they were from a hatchery.
I would like to create some crosses of my own and would really like to see what the chicks may grow up to look like using certain purebred hens.

The hens that I have are:
Buff Orpington
Blue Andalusian
Blue Marans (this cross would produce an olive egger, right?)
Speckled Sussex
Barred Rock

Also, has anyone used a certain breed to achieve beardless Easter Eggers? I bought a beardless EE last month that lays a green egg and I believe she was from a Ameraucana hen and a Jungle Fowl X roo. She is beautiful, but I don't have a Jungle Fowl roo to create more like her.

If anyone can help me out with photos, I would really appreciate it! If you post any, please be sure to post what the parents were too.


THANKS!

 

[Ridgerunner]

The blue in an Ameraucana is the Blue/Black/Splash (B/B/S) type of blue. It should be pure for extended black and it is split for the blue gene. That means it has one blue gene and one not-blue gene. It can give either the blue or the not-blue to its offspring, but they will all get an extended black.

The way the blue gene works with extended black is that two not-blue genes gives you a black bird, one blue gene and one not-blue gene gives you a blue bird, and two blue genes gives you a splash bird. If your Ameraucana rooster is a true Ameraucana, it will give an extended black gene to all of its offspring and may or may not give a blue gene to its offspring.

I'm not sure what "blue" the Andalusian or Maran have. I think the Maran is the same Blue/Black/Splash genes as the Ameraucana, but I think the Andalusian has a different genetic make-up to get blue. But I'm not 100% sure about either one. If it is the same B/B/S genes, you will get some black, some blue, and some splash from this cross. You should also get blue, black, and splash if you breed two B/B/S Ameraucanas.

Buff is a bit tricky. There are different ways to make buff and it can have some interesting effects. In theory, crossing a B/B/S blue Ameraucana with a Buff Orpington will give you blue and black offspring, but I would not be surprised to see a lot of buff on it too. I've seen pictures of really pretty chickens with a cross between a buff and black.

Your Speckled Sussex hen should give you both black and blue chicks. You could easily get a few red or gold feathers scattered in there, especially with the male offspring, but these should be pretty basic black or blue.

Your B/B/S rooster over a Barred Rock hen will give you sex links. The males will be barred and the females will not be barred. Some chicks will be black and some will be blue. You should be able to see the spot real well on the black chicks but I'm not sure you will be able to on the blue chicks. I think you will be able to but I haven't had any blue chicks so I'm not sure what the down actually looks like.

The way the egg color genetics work, the Ameraucana should be pure for the blue gene and it should have no brown. There is one pair of genes that determine the base egg color, either blue or white. Blue is dominant, so if the bird has just one blue gene, the base color will be blue. But there are a lot of different genes that determine brown. How these different brown genes go together determines what shade of brown gets put on the egg. This might help explain how it works.

Base blue + no brown = blue
Base blue + brown = green
Base white + no brown = white
Base white + brown = brown

Chickens inherit these genes from both parents. If your Maran lays dark brown eggs, you should get olive green eggs from that cross.

Since the blue egg gene is dominant and a true Ameraucana is pure for the blue egg gene and has no brown, all his offspring will have one blue egg gene. So they will all be either blue or green, depending on what the hen contributes in the way of brown.

I don’t know if the beard or muffs are dominant or not. I can’t help you with that.

 

[QuailQT]

Here is one of my favorite EE's that I just got from another BYC'er. She lays a bluish green egg and I hatched a chick, but can't tell which one it might be since others hatched with it too. :O( I'm hoping to get lots of beautiful babies from her and my blue AM roo. Excited to see if they are bearded or not too.

 

[speckledhen]

Which color Ameraucanas do you have? I have blue, black and splash. When I had a Barred Rock rooster, I made plenty of Barred EEs. Some had beards, some did not. Some had yellow legs, some had white skin. ALL laid green eggs, some were bluish green, some a light olive green.

Now, I have a Delaware rooster over the main flock so I make Delaweggers with my Ameraucanas as well as with my Easter Egger hens. Some end up with single combs and lay tan eggs, but the pea combed ones lay nice green ones.

Here is a blue barred EE out of a Blue Ameraucana hen with a Barred Rock sire:

 

[Bleenie]

These 3 girls are the product of a Black EE/Wyandotte crossing. The two girls together are around 3/4wyandotte and thè other girl is a chick of one of theirs crossed back to the same roo. 2 older girls lay green eggs, younger lays an almost blue egg.

I'm quite fond of the cross because they hens have more weight and are laid back, also, the male chicks grow fast and are HUGE so easy to sell.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is what I was talking about with your Speckled Sussex hen cross with the Blue Ameraucana rooster. This is actually a rooster from a Speckled Sussex rooster over a Black Australorp hen cross, but I'd think your cross will give a similar result. All my roosters from this cross had these random colored feathers, sometimes gold like this and sometimes darker red, but all the hens were pure black. The major difference is that I'd expect some of yours to be black and some blue.

But you never really know until you hatch some. You can sometimes have surprises. The parents are not always as pure as you sometimes think.

Good luck! You should get some interesting chicks.

 

[LittleBittyFarm]

Hey,

I am a high school teacher and I use rare chicken breeds and egg colors to teach sustainability & genetics. We research different egg colors and breeding for various egg colors. We are going to be hatching some olive eggers and various other breeds soon in the classroom.

Has anyone tried a cross between two blue egg laying breeds (Ameraucana with Cream Legbar) or even a cross between a blue egg layer with a green egg layer. I am just curious if this would produce a brighter blue egg layer or even a brighter turquoise colored egg. Anyone tried this or have opinions/predictions or a hypotheses?

Thanks!

 

[metalbone]

So i just happened across this thread as I was curious what people were coming out with with crosses. I run all Buff Orpingtons for my main layers. I have some residual other types but only 3 non BO layers. I also have one Americauna Rooster that I got as a prize from McMurray Hatcheries.

I decided a while back to start hatching my own rather than buying just because it was something interesting to do. My original rooster wasn't anything special but he was very pretty and his offspring were pretty if not a little small. SO when i got the Americauna I was like Hey this should be interesting. I live in an area that is largely populated by foxes coyotes and hawks so keeping chickens is an inherently difficult process. I tend to provide more food for the wild life than I would like but part of the natural process I suppose.

Anyways I digress. After getting the Americauna I began wondering, the BO's lay great eggs in my opinion and from what I have read of the Americauna so do they. I am more crossing them out of curiosity than anything else. Unfortunately out of the 15 AM/BO crosses I have only two left. It was interesting to see how different they all were though. Some had really puffy beards while others had none, some were white, some were gold like the BO with some speckling.

From what I saw from the 15 original hatchlings they are going to be beautiful birds. Beauty aside though I am curious to see how the eggs turn out as well as the size of the birds as I do cull the roosters for the freezer.

Here are the two remaining chicks out of the original 15 crosses. They are currently 4 months.






Excuse the tail feather or rather the lack there of. PapaRoo was recently in a tussle with a fox. He won sort of sacrificing his beautiful tail feathers. Any way he is papa and the two pics above him are his 4 month old offspring. The gold doesn't seem to have the speckling, but has small sideburns. The white has speckling but no beard or sideburns.

I am not scientific by any means but I though I would share my musings and such. I have 9 more being sat on currently so I am curious how they will turn out. Broody hens make the best incubators.

 

[draye]

I have an Ameraucana, Lucy, which she lays blue, green and sometimes pale pink eggs. The daddy is a Buff, Big Foot. Now I have Rodan, my husbands name, hoping to be a girl. "She" is 3 months old, how can I tell if it is a girl and what colored eggs will I get?. Rodan is buff with black on "her" tail tips, very small cone and no waddles.

First off a hen will only lay one color egg her whole life. so all three colors are not coming from her.
Color of a chikcen will not tell you what color egg a hen will lay. You'll just have to wait and see what color she lays all depends on the cross done to prioduce her and which genes she inheirited from the parents.

 

[Chicken5555]

Alishye, These are three of my half Blue Splash Marans.