Blue color questions

[Whitney13]

Okay I am thinking about getting some cochins. I would like to get some black and some blue to start out with. My questions is , is blue a modifier of black? or is the black you get when breeding blues a completely different color of black?
I guess the question would be if I got some cochins that were bred to be black and crossed them with a blue, would I get blue chicks?


I can figure out any type of horse color genetics but chickens are so confusing.

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
When you refer to Blue are you referring to Blue or Self Blue?
If it is Blue then use this chart -

Black to Black = 100% Black
Black to Blue = 50% Blue, 50% Black
Black to Splash = 100% Blue

Self Blue -
(not my bird) --

Blue -
(not my bird) --

Chris

 

[Whitney13]

I was talking about blue, not self blue.
So you are saying a bird that was bred black to black for generations back can still produce blue?

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
In order to maintain the andalusion Blue with good lacing you will need to use a Black from Blue breeding on occasion. A straight Black from Black mating with no andalusion blue in thier heritage seldom produce good Blues. You can easily breed the blue ability by adding black from Non-Blue breeding. there are over 10 genetic versions of Black in Poultry and knowing what you have makes all the difference in a breed pen.

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
Any pure Black bird bred to a pure Blue fowl will produce 50% Blue and 50% Black

Chris

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

To answer the original question, YES, blue is a diluter of black. Chickens have two types of pigment in their plumage: eumelanin (black) and pheomelanin (red). All other colours are enhancements or dilutions of those two pigments.

You cannot get a blue bird from a black to black breeding, but sometimes blues are so dark that they are easily mistaken for black. If you breed a black to a blue (which colour is which gender makes no difference), about half will inherit blue from their blue parent, and hte other half will not. Blue is the heterozygous expression of the blue gene.

 

[GotGame]

I would take this chart and use it with a grain of salt. This past year, I bred a blue cock over 1 black hen, 2 blue hens, and 2 splash hens. Out of over 40 chicks, I have 2 blacks, about 6 splashes, and around 30 blues. Every line and even every blue itself, can and will breed differently. This blue cock just throws much more blue than anything else. Sonoran, I experienced first hand what you are talking about. I bred a black cock to some of my blue hens this past year, and came out with a couple splashes from that mating. Come to find out, the fellow I got the black cock from also has blues. So best guess is he was just a super dark blue.

Black to Black = 100% Black
Black to Blue = 50% Blue, 50% Black
Black to Splash = 100% Blue

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
What people often do not understand well is the mathematical probabilty of the percentages. Strictly speaking, those percentages are not the percentages that you will hatch of all chicks, but the percentages of chance for each chick. If you breed a small number of chicks, the overall percentages can vary dramatically. The more chicks you hatch, the more likely you will get closer to the predicted percentages. It is generally thought htat you need to hatch about 100 chicks to be able to have accurate percentages. Since you used 3 colours of chicks--that would be 300 chicks that you would need to hatch to be able to reliably expect the predicted percentages; 40 is a lot less than 300.

Since you had 40 chicks, lets assume each of your 5 hens had 8 eggs that hatched.

From the black hen you should have have 4 blues and 4 blacks.

From the two blue hens, you should have had 4 blacks, 8 blues and 4 splashes.

From the two splashes you should have had 8 blues and 8 splashes.

That adds up to 8 blacks, 20 blues and 12 splashes.

Since you hatched 2 black, 30 blues and 6 splashes, you really are not all that far off, despite having hatched 260 less than should give reliably accurate percentages

Note that you did follow the correct trend, of least #s of blacks and most #s of blues.

 

[NYREDS]

Quote:
What people often do not understand well is the mathematical probabilty of the percentages. Strictly speaking, those percentages are not the percentages that you will hatch of all chicks, but the percentages of chance for each chick. If you breed a small number of chicks, the overall percentages can vary dramatically. The more chicks you hatch, the more likely you will get closer to the predicted percentages. It is generally thought htat you need to hatch about 100 chicks to be able to have accurate percentages. Since you used 3 colours of chicks--that would be 300 chicks that you would need to hatch to be able to reliably expect the predicted percentages; 40 is a lot less than 300.

Since you had 40 chicks, lets assume each of your 5 hens had 8 eggs that hatched.

From the black hen you should have have 4 blues and 4 blacks.

From the two blue hens, you should have had 4 blacks, 8 blues and 4 splashes.

From the two splashes you should have had 8 blues and 8 splashes.

That adds up to 8 blacks, 20 blues and 12 splashes.

Since you hatched 2 black, 30 blues and 6 splashes, you really are not all that far off, despite having hatched 260 less than should give reliably accurate percentages

Note that you did follow the correct trend, of least #s of blacks and most #s of blues.

Exactly. If you breed 10 it's unlikely you'll get the suggested distribution of colours. If you breed 10,000 you almost certainly will.

 

[GotGame]

never mind. tired of being followed around and corrected on every post I make. have fun with BYC, Im out of here.