It's leakage from a gold gene, but not necessarily from either of those. Nothing wrong with breeding blue to black if the black is silver based, and you won't know that without test breeding. Black or splash can be silver or gold based. How do you know that yours are gold based??? There is a really good discussion in this link about silver and gold based breeding.. http://ameraucana.org/forum/index.php?topic=1733.0 where in nc are you??? You have a nice looking flock, but keep the ee separate when you collect eggs for hatching...lol....stan
These are my ameraucanas. At least I hope they are ameraucanas. They are around 8 or 9 months old.
I'm not really sure about the test breeding to a blue???? I think you will find some helpful advice on that link though...my understanding is the same as far as getting the green sheen, but I don't believe you will lose lacing in your blues by breeding to blacks....I have never seen a blue bird with lacing....what we pass off for lacing is actually edging...different from say a silver laced wyndotte or Andalusian... If you willl check a feather, it will be edged in a diluted shade father than black on an edged bird, but on true lacing the outside edge will be black... I have read that the blues will lighten if you continue to breed blue to blue without putting in a black now and then.....I think it has something with strengthening the dilution gene???? The trick is to use a silver based black to keep from getting the leakage....Getting way over my head...lolStan, thanks for the feedback. I guess i made some assumptions that i shouldn't have made regarding the gold / silver gene. I assumed that generally speaking the gold gene was used in blacks (in order to get the green sheen) and the silver gene was used when developing blues.
I'll do a test run with one of my black cockerals over one of the blue pullets to see what happens. I'd imagine if the my blacks are extended E then i'll lose a lot of the lacing in the blue o/s .
I'm in the Southern Pines / Pinehurst area. Thanks for the link! It looks like it has a pretty good bit of info on it!
Pat
PS Nancy isn't an EE!! Shes some sort of other mutt... I think BLRW x SLW. I got her from a guy trying to hock what he was calling BLRW and SLW. She was like $1 so my son has his very own misfit chicken
I think if you pull one of Nancy's feathers when your son isn't looking, and pull one from your blues, then compare them side by side on a piece of white paper, there will be a more obvious difference in the lacing and edging.......
I don't have a blue wheaten hen she is regular wheaten. but i do have a blue wheaten roo. Mine are bantams
