what genetic will the rooster pass and determine to the chickes and what wil the hen pass to chicks?

i am looking for answers abut what the rooster determine for his chicks and what the hen determine for the chicks.
like
1- size of the body
in the same breed if the rooster is small and the hen is big or the opposite who will give the chicks the size.
if crossing large chickens not bantams like leghorn with brahma, who determine the size of the chick?

2- size of the eggs (not bantam)
in the same breed some lay bigger eggs, wil the hen that hatched from big egg and the father hatched from small egg will lay small or big eggs? or the opposite
in croosing breeds that one lay large eggs and the other lay small eggs, who determine the size in the offsprings laying hens ?

3- egg color (not araucana the dominant blue)
is it determined by the rooster or hen when croosing leghorn (white eggs) mail with australorp or rhod island (cream or light brown) or the opposite?

amount of eggs in one year,
if the roster from breed that lay 300 eggs and the hen from breed that lay 150 eggs, what the chicks will lay when they start to lay? like the father? or mother? or non?
thank you

Their contribution is equal but for the sexlinked genes. Some bantamizing genes are sexlinked.

Blue eggshell color is not sexlinked and linked to the peacomb gene.

Eggsize is probably intermediate.
Egg numbers can increase dramatically if you cross 2 medium well laying breeds (eg 150/year) due to heterosis effect (new blood).
I have seen doubling of numbers.

300+ eggs you can not improve. But the crosslings should lay (a lot) better than the 150.

thank you very much for the answer.
i dont know what to do.
is your information from experience or you know that from the genetice?

i have been told that,

1- the rooster has more influence on the chicks size the size and number of eggs they lay.
2-the blue eggs is not linked to the peacomb, it is dominant gene on white and peacomb is dominant on single comb. when crossing brown egg layer with blue egg layer the eggs will be green.

i will wait and see what will be with my chicks after 6 months

1-if number of eggs is influenced by sexlinked genes that might be true, but how much eggs does a rooster lay...
Size is true especially if those bantam genes are involved.
2-Blue egg gene is physically linked to the Peacomb gene by a short piece of chromosome. If you cross peacombed bleu eggers with single combed white eggers and you do further crosses, chances are that the animals with peacomb will have the blue egg gene. But a chicken does not need the peacomb gene to produce a blue egg if she has the blue egg gene. The linkage can be broken.

rooster with eggs, if the breed of the rooster lay eggs that what i mean.

Henk, if I may summarize to assure I understand the answers. Please correct me if I am wrong.

1- size of the body

I understand you to say the rooster has more influence on final size of the offspring, both male and female, than the hen. But my understanding is that they both contribute some. Influence does not mean the chick will grow to the same size as the father, but that the chick will be closer to the father’s size (most of the time) than the mother’s, adjusted for sex of the offspring, of course.

2- size of the eggs (not bantam)

I understand you to say size of the egg is equally influenced by both parents

3- egg color (not araucana the dominant blue)

I read the original question as being about the brown coloring, not the blue. Which parent influences the shade of brown the most? My understanding is that both parents equally contribute, but with the many different genes involved (I’ve read that at least 13 different genes that influence the brown have been identified) and the different ways they can go together, you can get a variety from the same parents. Which parent has more influence depends on which genes they contribute, not whether it comes from the father or mother.

4- amount of eggs in one year,

I understand you to say that both parents contribute equally. This does not meant that the number of eggs laid will be the average of the mother’s genetics and the average of the father’s genetics, but should be somewhere in between. So it does not matter if the mother or father comes from the flock that has a higher average. The contribution will be the same.


Jaja, I consider Henk to be one of the two top geneticists on this forum, Tadkerson being the other one. There are some others that know a lot, but these two stand out to me.

Good summary.

For the male offspring the contribution is always equal since they get a sex chromosome from each parent.

3-Yes, the question appears to be about the other egg colors. What can I say, I am dutch...
And yes, brown eggshell color is due to multiple genes but there is also one sexlinked gene involved that removes brown to get a whiter egg.
So for that gene the faher's influence is bigger.

thank you all
13 different genes that influence the brown egg color. that is hard do expect.
could you tell if you know a book about the chickens genetics?
thanks again

I know some, but they will never go into detail as much as you want it to...

Ridgerunner said:

Henk, if I may summarize to assure I understand the answers. Please correct me if I am wrong.

1- size of the body

I understand you to say the rooster has more influence on final size of the offspring, both male and female, than the hen. But my understanding is that they both contribute some. Influence does not mean the chick will grow to the same size as the father, but that the chick will be closer to the father’s size (most of the time) than the mother’s, adjusted for sex of the offspring, of course.

2- size of the eggs (not bantam)

I understand you to say size of the egg is equally influenced by both parents

3- egg color (not araucana the dominant blue)

I read the original question as being about the brown coloring, not the blue. Which parent influences the shade of brown the most? My understanding is that both parents equally contribute, but with the many different genes involved (I’ve read that at least 13 different genes that influence the brown have been identified) and the different ways they can go together, you can get a variety from the same parents. Which parent has more influence depends on which genes they contribute, not whether it comes from the father or mother.

4- amount of eggs in one year,

I understand you to say that both parents contribute equally. This does not meant that the number of eggs laid will be the average of the mother’s genetics and the average of the father’s genetics, but should be somewhere in between. So it does not matter if the mother or father comes from the flock that has a higher average. The contribution will be the same.


Jaja, I consider Henk to be one of the two top geneticists on this forum, Tadkerson being the other one. There are some others that know a lot, but these two stand out to me.

Click to expand...

Great summary. One more thing I'd like to know is, does the rooster or hen have more say about rate of growing/maturing?

Slow maturing roo breed over fast maturing hen breed, will offspring take their rate of maturing from father or mother?