Breeding an Amercauna rooster with a White Leghorn

[RainbowBirds_of_a_Feather]

Aloha,

If you take the female offspring and breed it back to the father you can intensify the coloration to the shell, Back-crossing. Having more intense blue and pale blue layers. Mate the male offspring back to the hen to get more layers of white but still have a quarter throw pale blue. But you will have prolific layers due to the Leghorn blood. The size of the eggs will be beautifully large too.....

If that is what you choose and if your Roo is true to the blue gene trait, that is. Good luck and show pics if you have the chance...


Oh yes one more thing............

 

[HenPecked_bychildren]

Quote:
This is SO cool. I am going to have to get my hands on a few leghorns for when my Ameraucanas are grown. I have some wheaten and blue chicks coming on Feb. 9th!

 

[svchic]

Thank you so much!!!! I really appreciate everyone's feedback. I'll show pics when they hatch..........

 

[eatmorechicken]

My guess would be that the F1 crosses will lay large eggs, but the egg color will be much paler than a true breeding ameracauna egg.

From what I understand about the blue egg trait is that the blue pigment is deposited in the egg shell while the shell is being formed. The blue pigment is first synthesized in the liver then deposited with calcium carbonate (eggshell). The liver can only produce so much pigment in a day. So a hen that lays about 3-4 eggs a week will have a more intense color because of the stored up pigment, vs a hen that lays 7 eggs a week, and depletes pigments before it can be supplied by the liver. So I beleive that the crossed hens will lay very pale blue eggs (almost white), but i could be wrong. My beleif is that the extremes such as high egg or meat yeild, egg or plumage color, are the result of mutations. I havn't done the cross myself, but the qualities from either parent of any cross are always diluted to some degree, and would take several generations of carefull breeding to restore the trait. Crossed birds do not make super chickens, mutations do. So a big bright blue egg from a high egg production strain is possible, but you need a lot of hens in order to increase the odds of a mutant in the flock. Perhaps cross breeding will increase the odds of mutations?

I'm just assuming you're looking to make a super chicken because I think about it all the time too.

good luck with dem chicks