Breeding blue egg laying Olandsk Dwarfs?

[AquaEgger]

Hi all,

So I recently fell in love with Olandsk Dwarfs. They are so pretty, and I just love the mille fleur coloring! They are a pretty scarce breed, so I am considering breeding them to the SOP and selling eggs and chicks. However, I also love colored eggs, and I was thinking of having a separate breeding pen to make blue egg laying Olandsks

Genetics are complicated, so I thought I would ask for some input here. What breeds would you use to cross them with? I would love to keep the mille fleur coloring, but a variety of feather patterns would be acceptable to me as well. Blue eggs are my ideal goal, but I suppose "Easter Egger Olandsks" would sell pretty well too!

Genetics time: So I am thinking I need a homozygous blue egg gene, so Araucana, Ameraucana, and Whiting True Blues are my breed options. There are bantam versions of the Araucana and Ameraucana, but I don't like the rumpless Araucana, so I'm leaning towards using bantam Ameraucanas. How dominant is the gene for muffs and beards? I'm not sure I would like that in the blue egging Olandsks.

I would love to breed them with Whiting True Blues, but since the Blues are a standard sized hen, I'm not sure the Olandsk roo would be able to successfully breed with a larger hen. What do you think? This would be the ideal cross in my opinion.

Thank you, any advice or input is much appreciated!

 

[UncleChuck]

Both blue eggs and beards/muffs are dominant. If you have f1s that are heterozygous for both, then the next generation will have 1/16 homozygous for both traits.

 

[NatJ]

Genetics time: So I am thinking I need a homozygous blue egg gene, so Araucana, Ameraucana, and Whiting True Blues are my breed options. There are bantam versions of the Araucana and Ameraucana, but I don't like the rumpless Araucana, so I'm leaning towards using bantam Ameraucanas. How dominant is the gene for muffs and beards? I'm not sure I would like that in the blue egging Olandsks.

I would love to breed them with Whiting True Blues, but since the Blues are a standard sized hen, I'm not sure the Olandsk roo would be able to successfully breed with a larger hen. What do you think? This would be the ideal cross in my opinion.

Thank you, any advice or input is much appreciated!

If you want the blue egg gene in a small chicken, you could try Easter Egger bantams from one of the major hatcheries. If you order a fairly large number, there is a good chance that you can pick one with no muff/beard that does have the blue egg gene (either 1 or 2 copies. It is possible to work with either.)

There is a test for the blue egg gene:
https://iqbirdtesting.com/blueegg
Testing a rooster will tell you exactly what he has, without the bother of raising a bunch of daughters to find out. Since a hen tells you something by the color of her own eggs, testing hens is mostly useful when you want to know if a particular hen has 1 vs. 2 copies of the blue egg gene. If she lays brown or white eggs, there's no need to waste money on a test for her.

It would be nice to start with a chicken that has 2 copies of the blue egg gene, but it is not essential. You will have to work with 1-copy chickens in the next generation anyway, so it is just a matter of whether that starts 1 generation sooner.

If you want Whiting True Blues, certainly give it a try. Some bantam roosters do manage to mate with full-sized hens. Some of the Whiting True Blues have muff/beard, and some do not.

There is a link between the pea comb gene and the blue egg gene. If you want your blue-laying Olandsk Dwarfs to have a single comb, you should get the blue egg gene from a single-comb chicken that lays blue eggs (Cream Legbars or Whiting True Green are possibilities for this-- but the Whiting True Green may have only one copy of the blue egg gene, so plan accordingly. Some Olive Eggers and some Easter Eggers have this too, if they trace back to Cream Legbar ancestors.)

The pea comb/blue egg gene linkage can happen in any combination:
pea comb / blue egg (examples: Ameraucana, Whiting True Blue)
pea comb / not-blue egg (examples: Brahma, Buckeye)
not-pea comb / blue egg (examples: Cream Legbar, Whiting True Green)
not-pea comb / not-blue egg (examples: Olandsk Dwarfs, also most other chicken breeds-- any that lay white or brown eggs and have single combs, V combs, or rose combs.)

Whichever way those two genes are linked, the linkage will be the same in most chicks. I have read that there is about a 5% rate of crossovers (causing them to be linked the other direction), but it's far easier to just start with the pairing you want.

 

[NatJ]

Both blue eggs and beards/muffs are dominant. If you have f1s that are heterozygous for both, then the next generation will have 1/16 homozygous for both traits.

True, but breeding the F1s to an Olandsk dwarf should give just four classes of chicks:
--blue egg with clean face
--not-blue egg with clean face
--not-blue egg with muffed face
--blue egg with muffed face

Since it is usually easy to recognize the muff/beard faces at hatch, those chicks could be rehomed or culled at an early age, and among the clean faces there should be about 50% that lay blue eggs.

If the goal is to introduce the blue egg gene to Olandsk Dwarf, with as few other genes as possible, backcrossing makes more sense than interbreeding the hybrids. Just keep choosing birds with the blue egg gene, and cross back to Olandsk Dwarfs. Continue until all the other traits are right, then interbreed the blue-layers with their male relatives who have the blue egg gene, and that should give some that have two copies of the blue egg gene and will breed true.

 

[AquaEgger]

@UncleChuck @NatJ Thank you guys so much for your input!

If you want your blue-laying Olandsk Dwarfs to have a single comb, you should get the blue egg gene from a single-comb chicken that lays blue eggs

Oh gosh, I totally forgot to consider the comb! I suppose if I wanted to stay true to the breed, the single comb would be best. I am honestly interested in seeing how all the pairings would work out! Cream Legbars and Whiting True Greens are great recommendations, thank you.

I feel like with Cream Legbars, their feather pattern would be hard to breed out, but I could be wrong about that? I know their crests are able to be bred out in two generations (just like the muffs/beards). On a side note, I have considered breeding Cream Legbars to the SOP as well, so that could be a good route for me. The mass produced hatchery Cream Legbars just look terrible imo. Dark hackles with no cream, and no preference for green or blue layers. (I actually had a Cream Legbar that laid green eggs, so hopefully I can get some blue layers if I try the breed again.)

but the Whiting True Green may have only one copy of the blue egg gene, so plan accordingly.

I assume I would just keep selecting for the blue eggers and cull/re-home the greens, correct?

If you want the blue egg gene in a small chicken, you could try Easter Egger bantams from one of the major hatcheries.

I think this is one of the crosses I will definitely try out! I could select for blue eggs, but I actually think it would be fun to have one less strict breeding pen with "Easter Egger Olandsks" and see what feather patterns I could get from the cross. If I could breed Splash into this line, that would be great!

So my ultimate goals are:

1. Olandsks dwarfs that look just like Olandsk dwarfs but lay blue eggs and breed true. I would call them "True Blue Olandsks Dwarfs" or something like that.

2. Easter Egger Olandsks with a variety of egg colors and feather patterns, including splash. Possibly select specifically for blue eggs and/or no muffs to help them be more distinct from EE bantams. Pea comb okay.

Thanks again, hopefully I will be selling eggs and chicks in a couple years!

 

[AquaEgger]

There is a test for the blue egg gene:
https://iqbirdtesting.com/blueegg
Testing a rooster will tell you exactly what he has, without the bother of raising a bunch of daughters to find out. Since a hen tells you something by the color of her own eggs, testing hens is mostly useful when you want to know if a particular hen has 1 vs. 2 copies of the blue egg gene. If she lays brown or white eggs, there's no need to waste money on a test for her.

Also thank you for telling me about the test! I'm sure I will use that when I get to F4 to check which roosters and hens are homozygous for the blue egg gene.

 

[NatJ]

I feel like with Cream Legbars, their feather pattern would be hard to breed out, but I could be wrong about that? I know their crests are able to be bred out in two generations (just like the muffs/beards).

Barring is caused by a dominant sex-linked gene, and you can breed it out in one or two generations.

Use an Olandsk Dwarf rooster with a Cream Legbar hen, and you will get sons with white barring and daughters with no barring. Use those daughters for the next generation (backcross to Olandsk Dwarf), and the barring is gone forever (unless you bring it back with another Legbar cross.)

If you use a Legbar rooster, sons and daughters will have each have one copy of the barring gene. For the daughters, that is the same as what a pure Legbar hen would have (previous paragraph tells how to breed that out). For the sons, they could be bred to non-barred hens and produce 50% barred chicks (males and females), and 50% not-barred chicks (males and females.)

For the rest of the color pattern, I'm not sure it would be much different than what the Olandsk Dwarfs have anyway. (If it is different in any way that matters, then I don't know enough to recognize that.)

I assume I would just keep selecting for the blue eggers and cull/re-home the greens, correct?

Green eggs are blue ones with a brown coating on the outside.

What color eggs do the Olandsk Dwarfs lay now? If they lay white eggs, they are a good base for breeding blue eggers. If they lay brown or cream eggs, it will be much easier to get green eggers from them, and you may never be able to get a true blue (no brown at all.)

But in general yes, you should be able to adjust the shade of blue or green by keeping the ones you like best, and culling or rehoming the ones you like least. When selecting roosters in later generations, try to use ones that hatched from egg colors you really liked (maybe have the best few eggs hatch in a mesh bag or basket, or a different incubator, so you can keep track of those chicks, and hope to find a male among them that will have all the other traits you need for the project.)

For choosing Olandsk Dwarf males, you could also pay attention to what color eggs they hatch from (darker colored if you want greener eggs in later generations, lighter colored if you want more blue/less green in the eggs of their daughters.)

I think this is one of the crosses I will definitely try out! I could select for blue eggs, but I actually think it would be fun to have one less strict breeding pen with "Easter Egger Olandsks" and see what feather patterns I could get from the cross. If I could breed Splash into this line, that would be great!

Yes, that definitely could be fun!

So my ultimate goals are:

1. Olandsks dwarfs that look just like Olandsk dwarfs but lay blue eggs and breed true. I would call them "True Blue Olandsks Dwarfs" or something like that.

2. Easter Egger Olandsks with a variety of egg colors and feather patterns, including splash. Possibly select specifically for blue eggs and/or no muffs to help them be more distinct from EE bantams. Pea comb okay.

Thanks again, hopefully I will be selling eggs and chicks in a couple years!

I hope it goes well!

Although I think your "Easter Egger Olandsks" will just be called "Easter Eggers" by most people, since there is no standard for what an Easter Egger looks like, just the idea that it should lay colored eggs. Many of the Easter Egger bantams do look like wanna-be Ameraucanas in miniature, but not all of them do. Clean faces and other-colored legs are fairly common.

 

[AquaEgger]

Thanks for taking the time to type out the gene info for the Cream Legbar! It would have taken me a couple hours to research what you wrote in a few minutes.

What color eggs do the Olandsk Dwarfs lay now? If they lay white eggs, they are a good base for breeding blue eggers.

Luckily they do lay white eggs, but some of them look more tinted than others. Hopefully by selecting the whiter eggs I can get nice blue eggs from the cross. If not, I'd still be happy with green eggers!

Although I think your "Easter Egger Olandsks" will just be called "Easter Eggers" by most people

I think you are totally right on that. After doing some further research I realized they wouldn't really be all that special so I will focus on the blue-egging Olandsk Dwarfs.

 

[NatJ]

Thanks for taking the time to type out the gene info for the Cream Legbar! It would have taken me a couple hours to research what you wrote in a few minutes.

I've looked it before, more times than I like to count, but eventually it stuck

Luckily they do lay white eggs, but some of them look more tinted than others. Hopefully by selecting the whiter eggs I can get nice blue eggs from the cross. If not, I'd still be happy with green eggers!

Sounds like a good starting point!

I think you are totally right on that. After doing some further research I realized they wouldn't really be all that special so I will focus on the blue-egging Olandsk Dwarfs.

As regards selling them, I agree. But of course any kind of chicken can be special to the person breeding them, if they are what you want to have

 

[GaryDean26]

No one mentioned the size problem of this project. Batam cockerels seem to be pretty good at producing fertile eggs with standard size hens, but getting offspring down to the size of an Olandsk Dwarf may never be possible. Bantam versions of standard size breeds are usually created by outcrossed to true bantam breeds but usual struggle with birds being too large to qualify for the Bantam status. If you don’t like the look of the hatchery Legbars (i.e. dark crests with no cream, etc) then you should make some color goals before you start or you could doom yourself to a bunch of hatchery looking crosses that are unattractive. It sounds like your goal should be for blue/splash. I don’t know if anyone still have any of the University of Arkansas Blue’s around but they come in blue/splash and lay blue eggs. When they first became available about 15 years ago there were even some of them that would come out with single combs. I was guessing that they were the foundation of the Whiting True Blues since the University of Arkansas is where Dr. Tom Whiting did one of his post graduate degrees in Poultry Management and he got his True Blue start from a former University Colleague who had worked with creating the blue egg flock for about a decade but didn’t have time to do much with them so he shipped them all to Whiting. Their also was a blue egg Bantam call the Maiden Rock Bantam that their was some talk of 15 years ago. They guy who created that breed kept flocks of over 500 bantams. He had lots of birds to choose from and focused on long backed birds that were unique from other bantams and gave them good sized bantam eggs (35 grams). He also created a combination of comb genes at is not present in any recognized breed (some type of modified cushion comb). I believe he created three standard colors. I don’t remember what they were but believe they were all pattern(laced) variants that were as unique as the type and comb.