Blue Egg Layers from University of Arkansas

[Ridgerunner]

These chickens have been selectively bred by someone who realy knows how to select the best breeding flock. I don't know if they selected just for color but I suspect they also selected for egg laying ability. The stock they started with was not leghorns. It was chickens bred to lay better than leghorns. And I don't know the traits in the original Araucanas they started with. By now, you may be wondering if I know anything, and that may be a legitimate question. I'm not even finished telling you what I don't know.

I don't know the quality or traits of the mille fleur leghorn flock you are talking about. Leghorns should lay fairly large white eggs and lay several of them, so at least I know something. That gene that makes the Mille Fleur speckling or mottling is a recessive gene, so it will not show up in the first generation if they are crossed with any chicken that does not have it. And I don't know the quality or purity of those Aracaunas. I sure don't know the color of those Araucanas so I cannot tell you what colors or patterns the offspring will be but they should not have the mille fleur speckling.

But assuming the leghorns are pretty typical for leghorns and the Araucana are pretty typical for what Araucana should be, what you should wind up with is a chicken that lays blue eggs. They should lay more eggs and larger eggs that the Auracana lay, but maybe not as well or as big as the leghorns. The adult chickens will probably not be very large, so they would not be really good for meat, although you can eat any chicken.

I don't know any real benefit in making that cross as to which is the hen and which is the rooster from an egg laying perspective, but I'd use the leghorn rooster over the Araucana hens. I'm not confident that the Araucana are pure Araucana and pure for the blue egg gene. If you only hatch eggs from the Araucana and those eggs are blue, then you know that the hen has at least one blue egg gene. If you use an Araucana rooster over the leghorn hens, you really don't know if he has any blue egg genes unless you are certain he is pure Araucana. When you say some are tuffed and some are not, that raises my suspicions.

 

[draye]

These chickens have been selectively bred by someone who realy knows how to select the best breeding flock. I don't know if they selected just for color but I suspect they also selected for egg laying ability. The stock they started with was not leghorns. It was chickens bred to lay better than leghorns. And I don't know the traits in the original Araucanas they started with. By now, you may be wondering if I know anything, and that may be a legitimate question. I'm not even finished telling you what I don't know.
I don't know the quality or traits of the mille fleur leghorn flock you are talking about. Leghorns should lay fairly large white eggs and lay several of them, so at least I know something. That gene that makes the Mille Fleur speckling or mottling is a recessive gene, so it will not show up in the first generation if they are crossed with any chicken that does not have it. And I don't know the quality or purity of those Aracaunas. I sure don't know the color of those Araucanas so I cannot tell you what colors or patterns the offspring will be but they should not have the mille fleur speckling.
But assuming the leghorns are pretty typical for leghorns and the Araucana are pretty typical for what Araucana should be, what you should wind up with is a chicken that lays blue eggs. They should lay more eggs and larger eggs that the Auracana lay, but maybe not as well or as big as the leghorns. The adult chickens will probably not be very large, so they would not be really good for meat, although you can eat any chicken.
I don't know any real benefit in making that cross as to which is the hen and which is the rooster from an egg laying perspective, but I'd use the leghorn rooster over the Araucana hens. I'm not confident that the Araucana are pure Araucana and pure for the blue egg gene. If you only hatch eggs from the Araucana and those eggs are blue, then you know that the hen has at least one blue egg gene. If you use an Araucana rooster over the leghorn hens, you really don't know if he has any blue egg genes unless you are certain he is pure Araucana. When you say some are tuffed and some are not, that raises my suspicions.

I was told by Dr. Bramwell himself that it was Araucana and Leghorn that were mixed together.
No crossed chickens.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I read in the first post of this thread that

. Both of these have predominantly commercial leghorn blood so they are great layers!!

I'm basing my thoughts that the parent stock were not standard leghorns from that. I've been wrong before.

 

[ronott1]

I wondered why they did not cross these.

Their web site says they have less problems with lethal gen if they use a non tufted hen with their rooster. I am not sure about their purity. They look good in the pictures though.

These chickens have been selectively bred by someone who realy knows how to select the best breeding flock. I don't know if they selected just for color but I suspect they also selected for egg laying ability. The stock they started with was not leghorns. It was chickens bred to lay better than leghorns. And I don't know the traits in the original Araucanas they started with. By now, you may be wondering if I know anything, and that may be a legitimate question. I'm not even finished telling you what I don't know.
I don't know the quality or traits of the mille fleur leghorn flock you are talking about. Leghorns should lay fairly large white eggs and lay several of them, so at least I know something. That gene that makes the Mille Fleur speckling or mottling is a recessive gene, so it will not show up in the first generation if they are crossed with any chicken that does not have it. And I don't know the quality or purity of those Aracaunas. I sure don't know the color of those Araucanas so I cannot tell you what colors or patterns the offspring will be but they should not have the mille fleur speckling.
But assuming the leghorns are pretty typical for leghorns and the Araucana are pretty typical for what Araucana should be, what you should wind up with is a chicken that lays blue eggs. They should lay more eggs and larger eggs that the Auracana lay, but maybe not as well or as big as the leghorns. The adult chickens will probably not be very large, so they would not be really good for meat, although you can eat any chicken.
I don't know any real benefit in making that cross as to which is the hen and which is the rooster from an egg laying perspective, but I'd use the leghorn rooster over the Araucana hens. I'm not confident that the Araucana are pure Araucana and pure for the blue egg gene. If you only hatch eggs from the Araucana and those eggs are blue, then you know that the hen has at least one blue egg gene. If you use an Araucana rooster over the leghorn hens, you really don't know if he has any blue egg genes unless you are certain he is pure Araucana. When you say some are tuffed and some are not, that raises my suspicions.

 

[draye]

I wondered why they did not cross these.

Their web site says they have less problems with lethal gen if they use a non tufted hen with their rooster. I am not sure about their purity. They look good in the pictures though.

What lethel gene? There should not be one if Araucana and Leghorn are crossed.

I read in the first post of this thread that
. Both of these have predominantly commercial leghorn blood so they are great layers!!
I'm basing my thoughts that the parent stock were not standard leghorns from that. I've been wrong before.

Yeah! Lots of people question the purity of hatchery stock. I don't. If they say they have Leghorns and I buy them as Leghorns, then I have Leghorns. Their word is just as good to me as any other breeder.

 

[ronott1]

What lethel gene? There should not be one if Araucana and Leghorn are crossed.

Yeah! Lots of people question the purity of hatchery stock. I don't. If they say they have Leghorns and I buy them as Leghorns, then I have Leghorns. Their word is just as good to me as any other breeder.

Oh, sorry about any confusion. They don't cross them now. I was answering the question about why some were tufted and some were not. Avoiding the fatal gene thing seems to be if both the rooster and the hen have the tufts. Must also be related to being rumpless. I don't really know though. They still seem to get dead chicks though either way.

 

[1muttsfan]

I've been wrong before.

X2

 

[Ridgerunner]

 What lethel gene?  There should not be one if Araucana and Leghorn are crossed.


Yeah!  Lots of people question the purity of hatchery stock.  I don't.  If they say they have Leghorns and I buy them as Leghorns, then I have Leghorns.  Their word is just as good to me as any other breeder.  

 

I'm not questioning the purity of hatchery stock. I don't even remember the word hatchery coming up until you mentioned it. I don't bash hatcheries. They provide what they provide and that's where I get most of my parent stock. I've gotten the same breeds from different hatcheries. They look different, not because they are not purebred, but because you have different people selecting the parent breeding stock.

To me, purebred chickens really does not mean much other than they should breed true. When I say pure for a trait, that means they have two copies of the gene, not split for it. If they are pure for the blue egg gene, both genes for that trait should be the blue egg gene, not one blue and one white. That way, they breed true for that trait.

A flock of purebred chickens can quickly lose certain traits unless the breeder constantly reinforced that trait. It comes down to strain a lot more than breed to me. The best example I can think of is from an article I saw recently. A breeder took a flock of chickens and split it into two separate flocks. He then started selectively breeding one flock for large size and the other flock for small size. The same purebred chickens, just selectively bred. I don't knwo how many generations it took, but the average size of one flock was 9 times the size of the other. Both flocks were purebreeds of the same breed and the same original parents. No outside blood was brought in. That to me shows the power of selective breeding.

You have spoken to Dr. Bramwell about these and I have not. When I see "commercial" leghorns I assume these are birds that have been selectively bred by someone that knows what they are breeding for to really enhance the egg laying ability and the feed to egg conversion rate. A standard leghorn, whether from a hatchery or from someone's backyard flock, should lay a lot of nice sized eggs. But they are not very likely to be up to the same standard as commercial leghorns.

So that is where I am coming from in suggesting that you won't get the same quality in the first generation cross of birds of unknown quality as you would get by having someone that knows chickens well enough to be teaching about them in a state university that has access to excellent breeding stock careful select the initial breeding stock, then go through a few generations of careful selective breeding for certain traits.

I'm not a expert on Araucanas. From what I have read, that lethal gene is somehow tied to their rumpless nature. It is a recessive gene so you need both copies to be present to kill the chick. Since the chickens that laid these eggs are not rumpless, I would expect that fatal gene to have been bred out of them, though that is just an assumption.

In any cross between Araucanas and Leghorns you would not have any chicks that have two copies of that gene, so the first generation would not suffer any consequences. But since it is a recessive gene, it is possible that the chick is split for it and could give a copy to offspring. That's a problem with recessive genes. They can be hard to totally get rid of since they can hide under the dominant gene.

 

[nicalandia]

It very much sounds like these are purpose bred birds, bred toward a specific goal; that is not a mutt, it is a project that may develop into a breed with sufficient time and effort. It sounds very interesting, and I will be watching to read new posts. Due to his location, Dr Bramwell may have access to birds with the smokey gene, which looks similar to blue, but breeds true. I wonder if this may be in his birds, or if they are the blue gene?

I once had the same idea, get the O gene to production type leghorns, the most productive egg laying chicken breed, it was simple enough, just keep breeding back to leghorn. but I never got past F2s. I lost my land to a crooked judge, lost many projects...

 

[nicalandia]

They should lay more eggs and larger eggs that the Auracana lay, but maybe not as well or as big as the leghorns. The adult chickens will probably not be very large, so they would not be really good for meat, although you can eat any chicken.
I don't know any real benefit in making that cross

Not true. if all they are production type leghorns with the Blue egg gene.. Huge Blue eggs and lots of them at it...