Barred Rock Rooster x Easter Egger

[lazy gardener]

And yet, genes can be tricky and not do what you think they will. I had a red hen produced by a BLRW rooster over blue Ameraucana hen. I expected green eggs-she hatched from a very nice blue egg-but she laid brown eggs. Odd stuff happens with genes when you least expect it.

Generally, if the EE lays a green or blue egg, she carries a blue egg gene, but may not pass it on. I have made that BR x EE and BR x Ameraucana cross often. All the ones I had did lay green eggs, but then, there's always the mystery that pops up from time to time.

Agreed. My EE roo produces some lovely chicks. He's been crossed over EE, and various brown egg layers, including those that produce BSL chicks. also crossed over white egg layers. first generation produced a lot of mint green eggs. F2 generation is kicking out a few more brown eggs than I expected. So, I'm crossing in a few more EE this spring, and added a couple Am chicks last spring. My goal is to continue producing sex links, EE, and a widely varied and colorful egg basket. Having a blast doing so.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Any clue if the offspring of a barred rock rooster and EE would produce blue/green colored eggs?

There is one gene pair that determines the base color of the egg. Since it is not a sex linked gene both the father and the mother have two genes at this gene pair. The blue egg shell gene is a dominant gene, which means in the absence of any blue gene the base color will default to white. If just one of the genes at that gene pair is blue, the base color will be blue. That’s about as basic and simple as anything in chicken genetics gets. The base is either blue or white.

Now it gets messy. Brown and green are simply brown coloring on the base color. There are a lot of different genes that affect shades of brown. Some are dominant, some recessive, and some only act if another specific gene is also present. That’s why you can get so many different shades of brown and green eggs, there are a tremendous number of possible combinations. They can interact in really strange ways. There is even one gene that if it is present it bleaches out some brown gene and can turn the egg white or blue.

So to simplify it:

Base blue + no brown = blue
Base blue + brown = green
Base white + no brown = white
Base white + brown = green

Your Barred Rock rooster is not going to have any blue egg genes so his offspring will not get any blue genes from him.

If your EE is laying a white or brown egg, her offspring will not get any blue genes from her. She doesn’t have any to give or her eggs would be blue or green.

If she is laying blue or green eggs, she either has one blue egg gene at that gene pair or she has two. If she has two she will give one to all her offspring so all her daughters will lay either blue or green eggs regardless of what rooster she is crossed with.

If she only has one blue egg gene, some of her offspring will get a blue gene, some will not. So if she is crossed with your Barred Rock rooster, some of her daughters will lay brow eggs and some will lay blue or green.

So if your EE is laying a colored egg, there is a good chance at least some of her daughters will too. If she is laying a brown or white egg, none of her daughters will lay a blue or green egg with that BR rooster.

 

[pgrenna81]

Lots of great info, thanks. She lays blue eggs, guess the best way to determine what their offspring will produce is to make some. I was most curious because I wanted to know what to call them if I sell some. I don't want to mislead people calling them EE only to get brown eggs.

 

[aart]

Lots of great info, thanks. She lays blue eggs, guess the best way to determine what their offspring will produce is to make some. I was most curious because I wanted to know what to call them if I sell some. I don't want to mislead people calling them EE only to get brown eggs.

Well, her laying blue eggs is a good start....still might only be 50-50 chance she'll pass a blue shell gene along.
EE can lay brown eggs.... or blue, or green, or pink...some folks don't know that tho.
If you're going to sell them before they start laying...just say what the cross is (BR over EE) and that they may lay green or brown.

 

[speckledhen]

Lots of great info, thanks. She lays blue eggs, guess the best way to determine what their offspring will produce is to make some. I was most curious because I wanted to know what to call them if I sell some. I don't want to mislead people calling them EE only to get brown eggs.

Well, you could call them Barred EEs, but still tell folks that there is a possibility they could lay brown eggs. My favorite Barred EE hen was a blue barred girl named Riley. I still have her half sisters who are over 9 years old now, all the same mother.

 

[pgrenna81]

Barred/EEs it is, thanks for the input. I just got him and he was off to a rough start with the hens so he's been separated but just on the other side of the wire fence from them for about 2-weeks. Thinking of giving him an EE and BR hen to see if they get along. I believe it was my very large BSLs that were beating him up, he's young and super docile and the BSLs share the top of the pecking order together and can team up on their bullying

 

[Ridgerunner]

How old is he? Until cockerels mature it isn’t unusual for older hens to beat up on them. I’ve had a few (not many) 5 month old cockerels that could handle a flock of older hens fine, and I’ve had an 11 moth old that was still getting beat up by the lead hen. Some of that is the maturity of the cockerel, some the attitude of the individual hens.

Since EE’s are not a recognized breed there are no standards or rules. For some people, an EE just has a colored egg layer somewhere in its ancestry. To me, a hen has to lay a colored egg for me to call it an EE even if a pullet that hatches from that colored egg might lay a white or brown egg. Semantics.

I believe a lot of the arguments in this world could be resolved if we could just agree on basic definitions. I don’t see that ever happening with EE’s.

 

[aart]

How old is he? Until cockerels mature it isn’t unusual for older hens to beat up on them. I’ve had a few (not many) 5 month old cockerels that could handle a flock of older hens fine, and I’ve had an 11 moth old that was still getting beat up by the lead hen. Some of that is the maturity of the cockerel, some the attitude of the individual hens.

Since EE’s are not a recognized breed there are no standards or rules. For some people, an EE just has a colored egg layer somewhere in its ancestry. To me, a hen has to lay a colored egg for me to call it an EE even if a pullet that hatches from that colored egg might lay a white or brown egg. Semantics.

I believe a lot of the arguments in this world could be resolved if we could just agree on basic definitions. I don’t see that ever happening with EE’s.

Boy, that's for sure!!

 

[pgrenna81]

Yeah he's only 5-6months old. He's big but a softy and the large aggressive girls were too much for him.

 

[Weatherfordmom27]

I incubated and hatched eggs from a Barred Rock Rooster and Easter Egger hen. 20 weeks later this is the color they are laying.