Breed and gender on supposed EE

[cindy parker]

I hatched this chick from an egg that I was told was am EE egg. Chick is mostly black with some gold looking feathers on the back of the neck..not many. Breed doesn't really matter at this point as she will be only used for laying eggs for us...IF she is she? Any clue?

[/IMG]

 

[cindy parker]

Another pic of chick

 

[Percheron chick]

Most EEs will have green legs. Take a side shot not holding her.

 

[cindy parker]

So it's a her??? Best shot I could get of her sexy legs

 

[jGchicks]

i have a bird i hatched from an olive egg that looks a lot like this right now! i'm really hoping its a girl, never had a black combed bird before. looking forward to hearing other's advice! here's my lady (it was hot!)

 

[cindy parker]

Hmmmm...this one hatched from a blue (EE) egg. I've had EE's of different colors but never a black one. I hope it's a girl just so I can see what color eggs she will lay!

 

[BantamLover21]

Pullet, probably an Easter Egger.

 

[CrazyTalk]

An easter egger is any bird that carries the blue egg gene and doesn't fit any other breed specification. There's no real good way to tell unless you know the genetics of the bird's parents, or you wait until it starts laying.

Blue is dominant, so there's a chance a bird coming out of a blue egg doesn't lay blues (and therefore isn't an easter egger), but it's probably an EE - the bird's color, size, etc don't matter.

The small comb is a good sign at this point - the blue egg gene is at a locus close to the gene for (I want to say) pea comb - so if you were seeing a V or a big single comb it would be a bad sign.

 

[cindy parker]

Ok...so an EE can lay brown eggs as well then right? I bought 2 dozen to hatch and there were blue, green, almost white, and light brown in the bunch.

 

[CrazyTalk]

No, the blue egg gene is dominant - so easter eggers need to lay blue, green, or olive eggs - and maybe some grey - i'm not sure about the genetics of grey. So some of the birds that you got eggs from weren't easter eggers (the brown).

That being said, all is not lost - because if the rooster carries the blue egg gene, there's a good chance some of the birds from the brown eggs will lay blue or green. I'd be a bit upset with getting brown eggs though if I bought 'easter egger eggs', as they'll be heterozygous at best, and there's a good chance many or all of them don't lay blue.

Chicken breeds aren't like dog breeds - there's no purity/pedigree/etc here. It meets the standard or it doesn't. You can breed together two Araucanas, and a bunch of the offspring will be Easter Eggers - and you can breed an Easter Egger to an Araucana and get perfectly good Araucanas from some of the brood.