Ameraucana leg color or ear lobe color to determine egg shell color?

[Ridgerunner]

A pure Ameraucana rooster will be pure for the blue egg gene. He will give a copy of that dominant OO gene to each of his offspring. A pure Orpington hen will be pure for the white egg gene. She will give a copy of that recessive oo gene to each of her offspring. So each offspring will have Oo and pullets will lay a base blue egg.

A pure Ameraucana rooster will not contribute any brown shell color to any of his offspring. A pure Orpington hen will contribute brown shell color to all her offspring. So all offspring will receive some brown shell color to put on top of the base blue egg shell. That means a green egg. Exactly what shade of “green” is unknown. It could be pretty close to blue, maybe olive green, maybe minty green, or some other shade. It’s highly possible different pullets from that cross will lay different shades of green. It depends on what “brown” the Orpington contributes.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

When she first went broody, I tried ordering some eggs online (nothing fancy, just mixed brown layers, as I'd never done it before, and wasn't sure of what my results would be). They arrived, and looked well-packaged, but the entire lot of them ended up being scrambled, with the exception of maybe 2-3, and those had detached air sacs. (After 10 days of no growth, I carefully cracked them open in baggies to see what was going on, and they were literally all scrambled; it looked just like it I had dumped them in a glass and given a few whirls with a fork) I think that even if a breeder is good about packaging the eggs (these were individually bubble-wrapped, and boxed in more bubble wrap, and had a little heating pad taped to the inside... clearly a lot of care was taken in packaging them), and you do all the stuff you should do to let them rest, etc, you really have no control over the USPS or even general road conditions. I'm a little nervous about trying the shipped egg route again.

Sorry you had such a bad experience with shipped eggs. When my last batch arrived, they were so twisted around inside that you could see the twists when we candled them, and they all had detached air cells. We let the sit undisturbed for 49 hours point-down, then stuck them under a chicken. We had 9 of 12 hatch, which I thought was outstanding for scrambled eggs. I do think my hatch would have been FAR lower if I'd tried to put them in my incubator instead of under a hen.

One tip that I have heard that might help you is to always order eggs from nearly the same latitude and height above sea level as you are located. In other words, I wouldn't order eggs from southern Florida or northern Washington State. I'm trying to remember the whys and wherefores, but it had to do with pressure and humidity, and shipped eggs doing better if they didn't have huge changes in either.

Don't honestly know if it matters or not, but I do try to pay attention to where the eggs are coming from. Other than that--there are many horror stories of postal workers shaking egg boxes on purpose, so it's always a gamble.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Does all that make sense?
(Also, I really hope I didn't get confused somewhere in all this trying to keep it straight in my head. If I have a chance, I'll work it out on paper and report back)

Yes...I think so...

I understand the underlying concept of how one gene pair from dad and one gene pair from mom mix and match...and you have to work out the variations with a gene chart (punnett square?).


I just haven't read exactly what genes do what for chicken characteristics and tend to get lost in the long listings of all the things that do this or that.

Thanks for simplifying this aspect...I'm slowly getting this stuff into my head.

Bottomline...If I'm lucky I have a 50/50 chance of green or brown eggs from these pullets....or 100% chance of brown if not so lucky. (If they lay well...I'm happy...color is fun...and I'll eventually get that.)

These chicks came from my grab bag of eggs that were supposed to be from pure layer breeds...but I'm finding a guessing game of genes as an EE roo was obviously involved (warned they "might" have some "Ameraucana" in them). Will be fun to see what they lay when they lay. They all hatched from beige to brown eggs.

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain.

Lady of McCamley

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Thank you again WalkingOnSunshine.

I printed out your response to ponder and study.

You are right...it was reading about the genes for feather colors that caused my eyes to glaze over and all genetic information immediately dissipated into the mists of confusion. Combs seem tricky to me too.

So, I'll start with egg color. And your post will help.

Someday, I dream of starting my own little breeding flock...but I have a lot to do and learn before then.

Thanks again. And thanks for the vote of confidence...I made it to middle school level in genetics!

Lady of McCamley

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Thanks again. And thanks for the vote of confidence...I made it to middle school level in genetics!

Lady of McCamley

Hey, no insult intended. I used that link because I figured so many people of so many educational levels would see it and might be interested. Want me to pull out some of my molecular genetics stuff for you?

Actually, the Mendelian stuff they teach in middle school is really all you need for basic egg color stuff, so I didn't want to muddy the waters. Without going into detail, all that happens at higher levels in Mendelian genetics is the Punnett Squares start getting bigger and more complex, and you have to account for genes that are codominant--that is, they both express at the same time rather than one expressing itself and one not. It's the difference between the straight dominance behavior of the blue eyes/Brown eyes coloration in humans vs. the codominant stuff that happens when people have gray eyes or green eyes, which take more genes to achieve.

(Actually, I ought to pull out all my old molecular genetics stuff, so *I* can remember it. I just got my 20 year college reunion stuff in the mail yesterday. NO WONDER I've been having trouble wrapping my brain around the feather-color genetics. I haven't done any genetics work in something like 16 years!)

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Another thing that complicates this is that there is not one brown gene. Last I heard there were 13 different genes recognized that affect the shade of brown when they are present and who knows how many unrecognized ones. Then you have all the dominant-recessive, co-dominant, partially dominant and all that so how one gene acts can depend not only on dominant recessive but on what else is there. One of those 13 recognized is sex linked.

I agree with you though, egg shell color genetics are simpler and more straightforward than feather genetics. There are so many melanizers, diluters, and other modifiers that every time I learn something on feather color or pattern someone comes up with an exception.

By the way, there is no genetic link to earlobe color and egg shell color. With most purebreds bred in accordance with the SOP, the red earlobes = brown eggs and white earlobes = white eggs I generally true. That’s probably where that came from. But Penedesenca have white earlobes and lay dark brown eggs and Phoenix have red earlobes and lay white or tinted eggs. There are other examples where that “rule” doesn’t hold with purebreds. When you get to crossbreds that rule certainly doesn’t hold. I have mutt hens with white earlobes that lay brown eggs, sometime fairly dark brown.

Similarly there is no link from leg color to egg shell color. I once had a yellow legged hen that laid a pretty mint-green egg.

There is a possible genetic link though that you can use. It’s not 100% but it’s pretty good. The blue egg gene and the pea comb gene are real close together on the DNA. They are so close together that one of the experts on here that I really trust said there is a 97% chance that if the pea comb gene is given to an offspring, the blue egg gene will also. For this 97% to mean anything the chicken needs to be split for both the pea comb gene and the blue egg gene and the other chicken can’t have either the pea comb or blue egg gene. Also the two genes need to be linked to start with. Otherwise the odds get all messed up.

Where this comes in handy is with the rooster. You can tell if the hen has the blue egg gene by looking at her eggs. Roosters don’t lay eggs. If you have what is supposed to be an EE rooster and he has a pea comb, the odds are pretty good he has a copy of the blue egg gene unless one of his parents that lays brown or white eggs (or has the genetics for brown or white eggs) also has a pea comb.

It gets even better. The pea comb gene is one of those partially dominant genes. If the chicken is pure for the pea comb gene, both copies at that gene pair on the DNA are pea cob, the chicken will have a pea comb. But if the chickens is split for the pea comb (has only one copy) you will get a wonky pea comb. You’ll still see the effects of the pea comb gene but it won’t look right. Probably some extra growth to make it a little higher. So if you have a chicken with a pure pea comb, it probably has two copies of the blue egg gene too. That’s good to know when you are selecting your breeders.

This being chicken genetics there has to be a complicating factor. If you have the rose comb gene in the mix, that will also affect what the comb looks like. Rose + pea gives you walnut. Plus there are modifiers that can give you a wonky looking comb anyway, such as the modifier for a buttercup comb. It’s not always as straight forward as I made it sound a couple of paragraphs up, but the 97% rule can be a powerful tool in helping you select your breeders.

This is all true, and good information. When I said a "brown coating gene" it was a vast oversimplification. It reminds me of when I was in grad school, and the prof told us: "Everything you've learned about this subject to this date has been a lie. Useful lies, as they allowed you to learn about the subject bit by bit and not get overwhelmed--but lies nonetheless because while it was mostly true, it wasn't the whole truth. In this course, I will teach you a more-complex and closer to the truth lie. Once you finish your PhD, you'll know that the real truth is that we're still not entirely sure exactly what's going on here, although we have some very good guesses. Maybe your original research will help us refine the lie we tell ourselves even further."

I heartily agree that you can get a really good idea of which of your EE roosters carry at least one copy of the blue egg gene by looking at the combs. My EE cockerels often end up with funky modified pea combs that are bumpy like pea combs and flop like straight combs since I tend to make Leghorn X Ameraucana crosses. And those Ameraucana x Leghorn cross hens lay blue eggs but have yellow legs. I supposed I never paid attention to earlobe color!

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Wow!! This is all *fantastic* information!! I feel like I struck gold! Thank you!

I have to admit, I'm grateful for the middle school version, because with all the variables in combs and leg colors and dominant shell genes, it sort of reminds me of algebra when you start trying to figure out multiple variables. (Or like being on the "Sizzler" ride at the county fair...)

This is all way beyond the white rabbit/black rabbit charts we learned!!

So, just to make sure I understand this correctly... it seems like for my purposes, it might be easier just to get a few more EE pullets and a Leghorn roo (because they lay white eggs) so I have a better chance of getting more blue eggs further down the line? Because as best as I can tell, I don't really have any EE breeders anywhere locally, so would likely get them at the feed store again or through mail order. Which means I'm not going to have a clue about the parentage of the roo, let alone the color of eggs they would have laid...

Yes, I'd say this is the easiest way to make blue egg layers for you. (As ridgerunner pointed out, this is going to be very simplified) Most EEs from hatcheries seem to very reliably carry one or two copies of the blue egg gene, since the hatchery wants to make sure their customers get the green and blue eggs. That means that your EE hens would be either Bl Bl (lay blue eggs) or Bl Br (lay green eggs) or Bl w (lay blue eggs). Your white Leghorn roo will be ww for certain. You can drop those genotypes into the Punnett Squares to see what the possible outcomes would be, but you'd get a minimum of 50% blue egg layers from your matings. You would also get a boost in the egg size and frequency of laying by using the Leghorn roo. The only downside I can see is that white Leghorn roos are notoriously aggressive--were it me, I'd get a minimum of six boys and then cull any that show the first signs of aggression, keeping only the least aggressive boy or two at the end. Remember that "friendliness" can actually be an early sign of rooster aggression in chicks, because walking right up to a big scary human is actually a pretty aggressive thing for a chick to do.

And actually... I've never thought about adding a white Leghorn roo to my flock. I tend to do mine the other way around, using an Ameraucana rooster over a white Leghorn hen to make EEs--Hey Ridgerunner! Does egglaying capability come more through the male side or the female side of the mating?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Minnesota? You might try posting on this thread to see if anyone near you has true Ameraucanas.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/72771/minnesota/1800

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I tried ordering some eggs online (nothing fancy, just mixed brown layers, as I'd never done it before, and wasn't sure of what my results would be). They arrived, and looked well-packaged, but the entire lot of them ended up being scrambled, with the exception of maybe 2-3, and those had detached air sacs. (After 10 days of no growth, I carefully cracked them open in baggies to see what was going on, and they were literally all scrambled; it looked just like it I had dumped them in a glass and given a few whirls with a fork)

JVeith
I'm sorry your shipped hatch went poorly...Most claim the standing hatch rate for shipped eggs is 50%.

BTW...Not to say your shipped eggs weren't totally mishandled by the gorilla at the USPS, but if you crack open most any undeveloped egg after 10 days of sitting warm under a hen, the decomposition will make it looked scrambled as the yolk membrane has broken down. If you shake the decomposed egg, it will give a clear "thud-a-thud" and feel just like a water balloon sloshing. (Wait longer to pull it and it will look like a green water balloon swelled tight in the outer membrane...and explodes with high velocity...both smell and speed of gook. )

I've not tried shipped eggs yet, but I too want to get some specific breeds that I may not find locally, so I'm taking notes of letting them sit with points down for 48 hours so the air sacs can reattach. I've heard that before...being such a nube, when asked how long you let your eggs sit before incubating...I said I put them in immediately...but I've only used eggs that I've personally gathered locally...no jostling there.


Quote:

Walking On Sunshine...when you candled your shipped eggs...what were you looking for in the undeveloped egg? I never noticed much on my undeveloped eggs on day 1, just transparent egg...I only can see something if it develops...the beginning of the embryo and blood vessels, etc. What/how should I look for detached air sacs and twisted chalazea?

Of course I am only using a small but bright LED flashlight in dark of night. What do you use?

Thanks
Lady of McCamley

 

[altballard]

JVeith
I'm sorry your shipped hatch went poorly...Most claim the standing hatch rate for shipped eggs is 50%.

BTW...Not to say your shipped eggs weren't totally mishandled by the gorilla at the USPS, but if you crack open most any undeveloped egg after 10 days of sitting warm under a hen, the decomposition will make it looked scrambled as the yolk membrane has broken down. If you shake the decomposed egg, it will give a clear "thud-a-thud" and feel just like a water balloon sloshing. (Wait longer to pull it and it will look like a green water balloon swelled tight in the outer membrane...and explodes with high velocity...both smell and speed of gook. )

I've not tried shipped eggs yet, but I too want to get some specific breeds that I may not find locally, so I'm taking notes of letting them sit with points down for 48 hours so the air sacs can reattach. I've heard that before...being such a nube, when asked how long you let your eggs sit before incubating...I said I put them in immediately...but I've only used eggs that I've personally gathered locally...no jostling there.


Quote:


Walking On Sunshine...when you candled your shipped eggs...what were you looking for in the undeveloped egg? I never noticed much on my undeveloped eggs on day 1, just transparent egg...I only can see something if it develops...the beginning of the embryo and blood vessels, etc. What/how should I look for detached air sacs and twisted chalazea?

Of course I am only using a small but bright LED flashlight in dark of night. What do you use?

Thanks
Lady of McCamley

I used a 1500 Lumen LED flashlight to candle my hatching blue and green eggs under my broody this September (2023). It was suggested that I use that high a lumen to see in the darker shell of the blues and greens. I got mine from Olight, also recommended by several.