Arkansas Blue egg layers

[ronott1]

That's why I posted the musing ... my only ONLY thing I would change about my AB's is in my opinion there is only a faint tint of blue ... I want it deeper. When I compair to others who call their eggs blue (like CCLB) the AB is the same saturation - so I don't feel bad calling them blue eggs - I just want a deeper color.

Not a bad complaint since it is the only one.

The Cream Legbars that I have lay a different blue because there was brown in the coating.

The eggs that the ABs lay are as close to true blue as you can get. Mixing them with other blue egg shell breeds will only add the taint of brown back that has been carefully removed by breeding.

 

[1muttsfan]

I find Cream Legbar eggs to be greenish in color, indicating some contamination with brown. I have had legbars from several sources and all produce eggs with some hint of green. That would certainly make the color more saturated, but not more blue.

 

[Manningjw]

That's why I posted the musing ... my only ONLY thing I would change about my AB's is in my opinion there is only a faint tint of blue ... I want it deeper. When I compair to others who call their eggs blue (like CCLB) the AB is the same saturation - so I don't feel bad calling them blue eggs - I just want a deeper color.

Not a bad complaint since it is the only one.

The trouble with selecting for deeper blue eggs is that you essentially are selecting for less productive birds. While brown eggs have many MANY different genes responsible, only 1 gene is known to produce blue egg shells and the AB cockerel I have is definitely homozygous for it. Even then, the more productive a bird is, the lighter brown(or blue in this case) the egg shell color is.

If you are going to select for deeper blue, you would have to look at ONLY the first egg or first week of eggs a chicken lays(either at POL or after a molt). Looking at the average egg in peak production and selecting for the best color will result in less productive birds being propagated.

The CCL gene, the Ameraucana gene, the Araucana gene and the U of A blue blue egg gene are all the same gene on the same locus. There was another insertion site of blue into a Chinese breed of chicken that produces blue eggs but I have never found out what the breed is or even if it still exists. The only difference you can select for is whether it is tinted with brown to make green (and thus looking deeper in color), matte vs shiny shells, and amount of bloom.

 

[ronott1]

The trouble with selecting for deeper blue eggs is that you essentially are selecting for less productive birds. While brown eggs have many MANY different genes responsible, only 1 gene is known to produce blue egg shells and the AB cockerel I have is definitely homozygous for it. Even then, the more productive a bird is, the lighter brown(or blue in this case) the egg shell color is.

If you are going to select for deeper blue, you would have to look at ONLY the first egg or first week of eggs a chicken lays(either at POL or after a molt). Looking at the average egg in peak production and selecting for the best color will result in less productive birds being propagated.

The CCL gene, the Ameraucana gene, the Araucana gene and the U of A blue blue egg gene are all the same gene on the same locus. There was another insertion site of blue into a Chinese breed of chicken that produces blue eggs but I have never found out what the breed is or even if it still exists. The only difference you can select for is whether it is tinted with brown to make green (and thus looking deeper in color), matte vs shiny shells, and amount of bloom.

On the Quecha thread, there was a very involved post that showed it to be the same gene. Either it was passed on to breeds in China from South America or it went from China to South America.

Humans do not migrate any where without their chickens! Guaranteed they will be the first to go to space colonies too.

 

[ronott1]

I did some digging and found a nice scientific article--with lots of Genetic stuff in it:

Quote: There does seem to be a difference in the Gene between the Chinese blue egg shell gene and the South American.

Since the color comes from billverdin, then getting the hens liver to produce more will keep the egg shell blue with production. Now to find out what the precursor to billiverdin is....Perhaps some type of liver tonic?

http://questiongene.com/let-a-virus-paint-your-eggs-in-blue/

 

[KernH]

I did some digging and found a nice scientific article--with lots of Genetic stuff in it:

There does seem to be a difference in the Gene between the Chinese blue egg shell gene and the South American.

Since the color comes from billverdin, then getting the hens liver to produce more will keep the egg shell blue with production. Now to find out what the precursor to billiverdin is....Perhaps some type of liver tonic?

http://questiongene.com/let-a-virus-paint-your-eggs-in-blue/

Very interesting reading! Thanks Ron, Kern

 

[ronott1]

Very interesting reading! Thanks Ron, Kern

Your welcome Kern!

I need to get that link into pdf for my notes.

 

[Manningjw]

I did some digging and found a nice scientific article--with lots of Genetic stuff in it:

There does seem to be a difference in the Gene between the Chinese blue egg shell gene and the South American.

Since the color comes from billverdin, then getting the hens liver to produce more will keep the egg shell blue with production. Now to find out what the precursor to billiverdin is....Perhaps some type of liver tonic?

http://questiongene.com/let-a-virus-paint-your-eggs-in-blue/

Yep, that is what I remembered, the Chinese insertion site is slightly different but essentially the same retrovirus or at least family of retrovirus causing it. The chickens that we have that lay blue eggs whether you are in Europe, USA, South America etc all have the South American insertion site.

I still haven't figured out which Chinese chickens lay blue eggs.

 

[ronott1]

Yep, that is what I remembered, the Chinese insertion site is slightly different but essentially the same retrovirus or at least family of retrovirus causing it. The chickens that we have that lay blue eggs whether you are in Europe, USA, South America etc all have the South American insertion site.

I still haven't figured out which Chinese chickens lay blue eggs.

It would be hard to figure out too--China is an import un friendly country so we cannot bring them here. Even if you could, we would be risking some bad buggies from them.

 

[Metella]

THIS IS AWESOME - ----


But I don't get the correlation between selection for the darkest egg possible and lower production ????