Breeding experiments for colorful eggs from predator savvy, clean leg chickens with fun combs and crests

[halefamily_flock]

This spring, I'm excited to experiment with a few new breeding groups. My 2021 experiments produced so many gorgeous and unique roosters that I've had trouble deciding which ones to give up. Before I let two of them go, I'm letting them produce my first round of fertile hatching eggs to sell this year.

This Silver Hamburg/Gold Spitzhauben hybrid is beautiful, but doesn't have the rose comb I was hoping for. Clearly, my Hamburg hen is heterozygous for rose comb and passed her single comb gene instead.


Here's his competition, the guy I'm keeping for serious breeding this year. He's a Hamburg-Cream Legbar hybrid.


But I thought I could use my Hamburg/Spitz roo for hatching eggs to sell, and if I get a broody hen or two before I swap him out of the breeding group, I can let the broodies raise a few of his babies, just for fun.

This Olive Egger has already produced some beautiful offspring, and one of his sons will be replacing him. Until then, he's my best bet for the darker end of the egg rainbow.

Here are his 3-month old progeny, from similar hens...

 

[Chikyboy]

Interesting project!

 

[DarJones]

Straight comb is from a gene on chromosome 1. Rose comb is an inversion on chromosome 7 with two documented versions, r and r1. Rose comb requires the SC gene on chromosome 1 plus the r or r1 gene on chromosome 7. To get straight comb, you need the SC gene on chromosome 1 plus the wild type r+ on chromosome 7. In the above example of a rooster with SC, it is because he has r+ on chromosome 7. It is a bit messy to sort out with the best advice being to breed a rose comb hen to a rose comb rooster with high probability of getting a homozygous rose comb bird out of the combination.

 

[Fancychickens_Norway]

Very very interested in seeing more pic of the Hamburg x Spitz cross! I am in Norway and having trouble finding Hamburg hens for my rooster so have been toying with the idea of crossing him to my golden spitz hens or even waiting for my silver spitz chicks to grow and pair him up with any silver spitz hens.

 

[halefamily_flock]

It's been a while. Not sure if you're still active @Fancychickens_Norway, but
Here is what my Spitz hybrid breeding pen looked like for Spring 2023....
The older rooster is a purebred Gold Spitz from Cackle Hatchery in 2020. The younger guy on the bale is a 3rd generation hybrid that includes Gold Spitz, Cream Legbar, and traces of Welsummer.

Here were the ladies in the pen...
The Silver Spitz hybrid hen on the bale came from my 2022 breeding group #1. She was the only one who got a decent v-comb & crest and was taken by a hawk not long after breeding season . Fortunately, I ended up with one really nice son I'm breeding in Spring 2024. I've only ever had one purebred Gold Spitz hen in the flock, so growth of my Gold Spitz hybrids has mostly come from back crossing Cream Legbar hybrid hens to the Spitz rooster.

These girls were from 2022 Group #1. Split single combs and small, backwards crests, but decent spangling...

I also had a Welsummer hen in the group...

And an Olive Egger back cross to Welsummer...

 

[halefamily_flock]

From the Spitz-hybrid 2023 breeding group above, I ended up with my best Spitz group yet. Here is my Spring 2024 Spitz breeding pen (all pure white layers)...
The rooster carries 1 silver and 1 gold gene, which is perfect since I only want a few silver spangled hens to see if they can avoid becoming hawk-bait. Their first hatch is scheduled for Mar 12, 2024.

Although this girl is laced, rather than spangled, she has a nice crest...

 

[halefamily_flock]

For Spring 2024 breeding, I have more blue-laying Spitz hybrids than I expected, including 1 that looks so much like a Gold Spitz hen it took me over a week of separating hens one-at-a-time from the white-laying Spitz group to find her!
This is the group where I put the younger roo from my 2023 Spitz breeding group...

 

[Fancychickens_Norway]

From the Spitz-hybrid 2023 breeding group above, I ended up with my best Spitz group yet. Here is my Spring 2024 Spitz breeding pen (all pure white layers)...
The rooster carries 1 silver and 1 gold gene, which is perfect since I only want a few silver spangled hens to see if they can avoid becoming hawk-bait. Their first hatch is scheduled for Mar 12, 2024.
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Although this girl is laced, rather than spangled, she has a nice crest...
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Wow what an awesome breeding group ! 2024 will be an exiting year I am sure ! Really love the gold colour of the hens ! Yes it's been a while since I was on here and in the meantime I found a couple of Hamburg hens, so now that is a separate project from my Spitzhaubens. With the Appenzellers I ended up with a silver/gold rooster with a silver hen, and a silver/gold rooster with a gold hen for the 2024 season , so I'm getting a few interresting chicks, and one that seems to be citron in colour.

 

[Fancychickens_Norway]

So in 2023 I had a silver rooster with 4 silver hens and a gold hen, then at the end of the year I gave away the rooster and the silver hens, and kept two young roosters and a silver pullet (as well as the gold hen). I thought I had 1 pure silver roo and 1 silver/gold roo, but when the first silver eggs hatched one of the chicks had a golden colour, revealing that both of the young roos from 2023 were the offspring of the gold hen. The goal is to end up with a nice gold rooster that I can pair up with the gold hen and then breed true with the goldens in 2025. But...seems like the gold/silver crosses are giving me some unexpected surprises ! Like the first "golden" chick from the pair with the silver hen
which seems to be citron/lemon in colour, and a very dark gold almost more brown chick from the pair with the gold hen So now I have 2 additional goals for this project - get a nice group of silvers and try to get more citrons and establish them as my third flock of appenzellers

 

[halefamily_flock]

So in 2023 I had a silver rooster with 4 silver hens and a gold hen, then at the end of the year I gave away the rooster and the silver hens, and kept two young roosters and a silver pullet (as well as the gold hen). I thought I had 1 pure silver roo and 1 silver/gold roo, but when the first silver eggs hatched one of the chicks had a golden colour, revealing that both of the young roos from 2023 were the offspring of the gold hen. The goal is to end up with a nice gold rooster that I can pair up with the gold hen and then breed true with the goldens in 2025. But...seems like the gold/silver crosses are giving me some unexpected surprises ! Like the first "golden" chick from the pair with the silver hen
which seems to be citron/lemon in colour, and a very dark gold almost more brown chick from the pair with the gold hen So now I have 2 additional goals for this project - get a nice group of silvers and try to get more citrons and establish them as my third flock of appenzellers

Sounds like a fun project! Your birds are gorgeous!! I'm hoping to get some chamois spitz chicks this year. If I do, I'm going to give up my silvers for 2025 and focus on gold base colors, with black spangling for my blue layers and white spangling for my white egg layers.