Blue Ameraucana hen cross Delaware Roo

[Shellyhatches]

Hello all! I am looking to hatch some Blue Am eggs I have a blue Ameraucana hen and a Delaware Roo. Has anyone ever hatched these eggs? Will the Pullets lay blue eggs? Are you able to tell the Pullets from the Roos with this hatching? I’ve never done this before so I’m curious for all the info you know on this cross hatching! Thanks in advance

 

[DemeterAD9]

You will not get any sex linked chicks from this cross and the male is likely to pass the barring on to all his kids, I would expect them to be mostly white like a Delware too. Egg color should be blue/green if your hen is a pure Ameraucana that has 2 copies of the blue egg gene. If she is in fact an EE with only one blue egg gene copy you will get a mix of green/blue/brown.

 

[Floof]

The Delaware breed is a barred silver columbian colour. Blue is a dilution gene over black so you will basically get black and blue barred babies. They'll be cute but they won't be sex linked as all the offspring will carry 1 gene for barring, inherited from the rooster.

 

[flockofdovz]

Hello all! I am looking to hatch some Blue Am eggs I have a blue Ameraucana hen and a Delaware Roo. Has anyone ever hatched these eggs? Will the Pullets lay blue eggs? Are you able to tell the Pullets from the Roos with this hatching? I’ve never done this before so I’m curious for all the info you know on this cross hatching! Thanks in advance

I've been breeding for egg color for a year and have some experience. Basically, egg color theory is very similar to art color theory. Your has has blue egg genetics, but the rooster has a very pale brown egg genetics for the Delaware breed. If you mix blue + light brown, you will get a light green egg. Go check out the Silver Homestead's website for charts that show how the genetics play out with green and blue eggers. Blue + light brown = green in the chicken egg world. I crossed an Ameraucana roo with a light brown egg laying hen and got a daughter considered a green egger who lays a pale green eggs. You would need a white-egg genetic rooster like a Leghorn to get daughters that lay light blue eggs, which is how they created the Prairie BlueBell and Whiting True Blue at those hatcheries.

 

[Floof]

I've been breeding for egg color for a year and have some experience. Basically, egg color theory is very similar to art color theory. Your has has blue egg genetics, but the rooster has a very pale brown egg genetics for the Delaware breed. If you mix blue + light brown, you will get a light green egg. Go check out the Silver Homestead's website for charts that show how the genetics play out with green and blue eggers. Blue + light brown = green in the chicken egg world. I crossed an Ameraucana roo with a light brown egg laying hen and got a daughter considered a green egger who lays a pale green eggs. You would need a white-egg genetic rooster like a Leghorn to get daughters that lay light blue eggs, which is how they created the Prairie BlueBell and Whiting True Blue at those hatcheries.

So this is not exactly true. Prairie BlueBell are a hybrid and will not breed true; they probably have 1 gene for blue and 1 gene for white eggs so the offspring can be any combination of blue/blue, blue/white, or white/white. Whiting True Blues on the other hand are pure for blue genes and all their offspring will lay blue eggs.

Brown eggs are actually a white base color with a brown pigment layer over the top. The brown is controlled by multiple genes and is hard to breed out. There are only 2 genes for base color: all eggs are either white base color or blue base color. The brown is then applied like paint over the top. You can check any eggs base color by peeling away the membrane on the inside of the egg and looking at the inside of the shell. It will only ever be white or blue on the inside but may be any shade of brown or green on the outside, depending on what genes for brown the chicken carries and how far along in her laying cycle she is.

 

[flockofdovz]

So this is not exactly true. Prairie BlueBell are a hybrid and will not breed true; they probably have 1 gene for blue and 1 gene for white eggs so the offspring can be any combination of blue/blue, blue/white, or white/white. Whiting True Blues on the other hand are pure for blue genes and all their offspring will lay blue eggs.

Brown eggs are actually a white base color with a brown pigment layer over the top. The brown is controlled by multiple genes and is hard to breed out. There are only 2 genes for base color: all eggs are either white base color or blue base color. The brown is then applied like paint over the top. You can check any eggs base color by peeling away the membrane on the inside of the egg and looking at the inside of the shell. It will only ever be white or blue on the inside but may be any shade of brown or green on the outside, depending on what genes for brown the chicken carries and how far along in her laying cycle she is.

Whiting True Blue and Prairie Bluebell are BOTH hybrids. They are crosses of Araucana with Leghorn through various generations done in labs at both of the large hatcheries that created them. WTB is the McMurray high production blue-egg layer, and Prairie Bluebell is the Hoover equivalent. If you look at the Silver Homestead's blog, she's raised both and done breeding with both to compare their eggs for color, size, etc.

The original poster is asking about crossing her Ameraucana with the Delaware roo. Despite the Delaware having brown-egg genetics, if the Ameraucana hen is homozygous, the daughters will lay green eggs. Your comment about it being hard to "breed out" brown-egg genetics is misleading because her hen's homozygous true-blue egg genetics means her DNA dominates, so the daughters will lay green eggs, not brown like the father's genetics.

 

[Floof]

Whiting True Blue and Prairie Bluebell are BOTH hybrids. They are crosses of Araucana with Leghorn through various generations done in labs at both of the large hatcheries that created them. WTB is the McMurray high production blue-egg layer, and Prairie Bluebell is the Hoover equivalent. If you look at the Silver Homestead's blog, she's raised both and done breeding with both to compare their eggs for color, size, etc.

The original poster is asking about crossing her Ameraucana with the Delaware roo. Despite the Delaware having brown-egg genetics, if the Ameraucana hen is homozygous, the daughters will lay green eggs. Your comment about it being hard to "breed out" brown-egg genetics is misleading because her hen's homozygous true-blue egg genetics means her DNA dominates, so the daughters will lay green eggs, not brown like the father's genetics.

I'm sorry you misunderstood. A chicken breed is a group of chickens with distinct and consistent physical characteristics, such as body shape, skin color, feather patterns, and comb type. These traits are passed down through generations when bred within the same breed. Not all chicken breeds are recognized by the APA but that doesn't mean they aren't a breed. If it breeds true then it's a breed. The Whiting True Blues were created by Dr. Tom Whiting, a poultry geneticist who got his PhD from the University of Arkansas, in the 1990s. Conversely, chicken hybrids do not breed true. For instance, if you bred black sex links together, you would not end up with more sex links. Hybrids do not create offspring similar to the parent birds. If the OP were to breed her Delaware to her ameraucana her f1 would indeed create green eggers, but if the offspring were bred together she would get a full gamut of colored eggs from the offspring. Some would have the blue egg gene and some would have the white egg gene but all would have the brown egg characteristic because it is caused by multiple genes and is harder to predict and breed out.