Understanding this “mutt” breed

[luckycluk]

At the risk of sounding really dumb something has had me puzzled by others comments about Easter eggers. I know they are considered mutts but what breeds to you use to get the different looking EER’s. Are there specific hens and roosters do you use? How do you know your going to get what color eggs from what combinations. There is so many different looking EEr’s

 

[JacinLarkwell]

EEs? They're just a bird that (nowadays only might) has the blue egg gene somewhere in their background

Usually they use Ameraucana, but now people just mix EE to EE. Cream legbars are another common choice nowadays

 

[3KillerBs]

An EE isn't actually a breed because it has no standard. It is any chicken that has some kind of blue-laying ancestry and has been at least kinda-sorta selected for egg production.

The thing being that the blue egg breeds tend to lay less frequently and to lay smaller eggs but people want larger eggs more often. So originally the hatcheries crossed blue layers with productive white-layer breeds for blue-but-lighter and with productive dual-purpose breeds for green eggs.

Then they crossed those birds together over many generations so that now an EE not only can LOOK like anything but can lay any color egg.

The ones with the muffs and beards can trace back to some Ameraucana ancestor. The ones with the crests have a Legbar ancestor.