Blue eggs

[Lady of McCamley]

You can actually take any red based rooster and breed it over any silver based hen and get sex linking for the first generation due to the color genetics along the Z strand.

You can also do that with barring...a barred hen bred to a non-barred (red is often used) will get you barred boys and non-barred (black) girls (with red bleed through).

I've done a lot of sex linking with my Cream Legbar hen and Barnevelder (red based laced roo).

The problem with breeding any white is that you need to know it is actually genetic silver and not dominant or recessive white. Recessive white is the bane of chicken breeding as you soon get white birds popping up through the generations. Same with wheaten.

HTH
LofMc

 

[Gary Kenyon]

Australorp (black? as is typical) rooster bred over red sex links will get you "mutts" that lay brown eggs well and likely colored black, both genders.

If your rooster is white, likely all chicks will be mostly white with red bleed through.

If your rooster is blue, you will get black 50% and blue 50% both genders.

You can never breed a Gold/Red/Comet sex link to anything (not even another RSL/GSL) and get anything other than a mutt as sex linking only works the first generation to produce a hybrid. It is actually due to the color genetics that lay on the genetic strands (the Z, or long strand) that produces the sexable traits at hatch. It uses a red (roo) over a silver (non dominant white) hen (silver is dominant over red...roos are ZZ while hens are ZW...the hen then determines the sex and the color as her Z carries silver.) This produces"white" roosters with red bleed through and red hens with white bleed through. Breed that progeny again, and it is simply mixed genetics bred to something else with no gender difference in color.

Breeding to black will produce mostly black chicks, with possible red bleed through, as black is dominant over red and silver.

RSL/GSL tend to be heavy egg producers (with often ovarian cancer or other issues by year 2). Australorp are also very good egg producers but without the health problems of the RSL/GSL. Both lay brown eggs, so you will get shades of brown...and plenty of them. Both are fairly docile birds, with the Australorp being a bit heavier, so you'll get a mid-weight between them that should be fairly docile.

So it is a good breeding for getting solid, sustainable, egg layers. Keep doing that, and you'll eventually even out the production, body and temperament to have healthy laying hens. Only breed from your best in health and temperament thereby weeding out undesirable traits.

LofMc

Thank you for that! My Australorp Roos ARE black, so eventually, I will have a whole flock of black, egg laying beauties!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Do any of your chickens have feathers sticking out from the side of their faces, like muttonchops?

 

[Gary Kenyon]

Do any of your chickens have feathers sticking out from the side of their faces, like muttonchops?

Not that I have noticed. I haven't specifically looked, but that seems like something I would have noticed.

 

[Sevanson Woods]

Ok, now I’m really confused because I’ve recently been having the same issue-Light Blue eggs among the browns...
I have 1 Australorp, 2 Buff Orps, 2 RR’s, 2 blue Wyandotte/australorp mixes, 2 Coco Marans, 1 Barred Rock, & 5 tetra browns...Now for the past couple of years I’ve consistently only been gettting healthy large brown eggs from the beginning-until now (the last couple months. The newest girls (about Six months old) are the marans, the barred rock, & one of the buff orps...Next are a cuyuga duck, & five Tetra Browns (about nine to 12 months old), and the rest are from 1&1/2-3 years. I might guess the duck but these eggs are on the medium-small size, light in color, & they are also located “up” in the nesting boxes-with all the other eggs (not down on the ground). I then suspected the young barred rock; So, I separated her, but hers have been a nice dark brown... Any other ideas??

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Ok, now I’m really confused because I’ve recently been having the same issue-Light Blue eggs among the browns...
I have 1 Australorp, 2 Buff Orps, 2 RR’s, 2 blue Wyandotte/australorp mixes, 2 Coco Marans, 1 Barred Rock, & 5 tetra browns...Now for the past couple of years I’ve consistently only been gettting healthy large brown eggs from the beginning-until now (the last couple months. The newest girls (about Six months old) are the marans, the barred rock, & one of the buff orps...Next are a cuyuga duck, & five Tetra Browns (about nine to 12 months old), and the rest are from 1&1/2-3 years. I might guess the duck but these eggs are on the medium-small size, light in color, & they are also located “up” in the nesting boxes-with all the other eggs (not down on the ground). I then suspected the young barred rock; So, I separated her, but hers have been a nice dark brown... Any other ideas??

My guess would be the duck as well. Otherwise, it is one of the younger layers. You say Tetra Browns...but if you got them from the feed store, likely one of those is an Easter Egger rather than a TB. Many feed stores mix up their bins by accident. Tractor Supply seems to be especially adept at having wrongly mixed chicks. And, btw, Easter Egger is simply "blue shell layer" now with no beard, muff, and often yellow legs. The hatcheries have so convoluted their lines that they've got a mix of mutt blue layers that look like any other bird.

It is important to note that healthy hens do not suddenly change the shell color of their eggs...and definitely not from true brown to true blue. In some illnesses, a brown egg can look whitish or tan (Infections Bronchitis for example), but a true blue egg will not suddenly appear.

Before breed guessing, crack open a "blue" egg and look at the egg shell color inside. A true blue egg will be blue on the inside as well as the outside as the egg shell itself is blue (from bile being thrown into the calcite during shell production). However, a brown egg has a coating applied (hemoglobin) to the outside over white shell. Crack open a brown egg and you see white shell inside.

Sometimes a hen will lay an extra heavy bloom on an egg that will give it a different appearing color. Most hens lay bloom consistently, but sometimes and aging hen will have heavy bloom. To check for bloom, run the egg under cool water to see its "real" color. When it dries, the bloom will once again affect the color. Langshan have historically been reported as "purple" egg layers because a heavier bloom covering a brown egg gives it a mauve/purple hue. I've personally gotten a greyish or pinkish color, but never a mauve, and definitely not a blue look over a brown egg from bloom.

So bottomline, it is the duck flying up to lay eggs, or you've got a blue shell gene hen recently coming into lay.

LofMc