Bantam Ameraucana newbie, need help with genetics

[lceh]

DD just got her first bantam Ameraucanas from John Blehm last week. She had hoped to focus on wheatens/blue wheatens as she gets started with showing, so she ordered 8 wheatens and 2 blacks (the latter to humor me). Well, John had a bad hatch that week and we only got 5 wheatens and 7 blacks, then a wheaten died and we are down to 4. Hopefully at least two of them will be female

. Regardless, we are obviously going to end up with a mixed flock of wheatens and blacks. She can only keep one roo out of this bunch, and we can't separate the flock into seperate pens at the moment. If she wants any hope of having any wheaten chicks in the future, she needs to keep a wheaten roo, right? If she has a black roo, will all of the chicks be black regardless of the hen's color? And even if she does keep a wheaten roo, will all of the black hens' chicks be black? I looked at the famous Chicken Calculator and that seems to be what it's telling me, although I do find it a little confusing. I'm thinking her only chance at wheaten babies from this group is a wheaten x wheaten match, but I want to be sure I've got that right.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

WHether or not black & wheaten produce black chicks depends on the e-allele that the black is built upon. The calculator assumes E, and if that is the case, all the chicks will be black, split for wheaten. Meaning that in the next generation you could get wheatens again. The problem is that you cannot select for wheaten quality in the splits. Also, the ameraucana breeders would not be happy with spits; even if the appearance is correct for black.

If the black is built upon a different e-allele, then chances are that the offspring will not be black, but mixed colouring.