Blue Wheaton and Blue Wheaton Splash questions

[HidingInTheHenHouse]

I have Ameraucanas. Roosters are Buff, Blue Wheaton, and Blue Wheaton Splash.
If I cross any of these roosters with my black pullets, what will resultant colors be? Also, I have one silver pullet. Would any of the roosters work with crosses for her, or would everything just be mutt colored?

 

[pips&peeps]

Only mix the wheaten varieties together otherwise you have mutts.

I've got lots of extra cockerels running around........

 

[HidingInTheHenHouse]

Yes, you certainly do have many roosters from your lines at this house!! So no chance for a blue offspring? I thought the blacks could carry the blue gene, so mixing a Blue Wheaton with a black you might get a blue? I really like the wheatens and the blues, but I only have black hens.

 

[pips&peeps]

You need a splash cockerel to bred to the black pullets.

The black and blue birds do not carry the pattern genes the wheatens do. I would not recommend mixing them.

This is what I recommend for new breeders:

Buff X Buff
Silver X Silver
Black X Blue X Splash
Wheaten X Blue Wheaten X Splash Wheaten
White X White (except you can do a cross to black to improve the lines, just don't breed the crosses together, breed to a pure white)

There are some other crosses you can do, but it takes a couple years to get back to original color and don't recommend new breeders to do them.

 

[texasgal]

Good info .. thanks!

 

[HidingInTheHenHouse]

So does the splash blue wheaten cockeral count as a splash for breeding to black? Maybe he isn't really a splash, but he is very light colored.

He is the light blue one with the wheaten head/neck, facing the right side of the picture.

 

[pips&peeps]

No, he is still wheaten, not a regular blue/black/splash.

 

[HidingInTheHenHouse]

Darn. Well, guess you better put me on the waiting list for eggs from your blues if your selling next spring.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Blacks cannot carry blue. If they did, they would be blue

What might be confusing you is that the black genes are the E-alleles, whereas blue is the Bl-alleles. In the case of wheatens, they are E^Wh. Females have very little black pigment; males, as with most E alleles look very simiar regardless of their E allele. The blue gene acts by diluting black pigment.

With breeding the blue gene, which is incompletely dominant, meaning that one copy causes a bird who is intermediate to those who carries two copies and those with zero copies. If you do a punett square of the results of breeding a blue bird to a not-blue (black) bird, half the outcome will be blue and the other half black. If you do the same square for two birds who are blue, half will be blue, 1/4 black and 1/4 splash.