Can Anyone Give Me Any Ideas On A Way To Reproduce These Colors?

[MNKris]

Hi! I am new to posting here, but have been a "lurker" for several years. I really enjoy reading all the posts. So much knowledge! Thank you everyone for sharing! As a horse breeder, I understand color genetics in that world, but chickens are so much more complex!

To make a long story short, I will be increasing the flock in February with new standard chicks and love a variety of colors. We don't show, but want conformational soundness. Can anyone give me any ideas on what common breeds can produce these two colored chickens? I know Auracana, Americana and Easter Eggers will produce this mix because these are mutts from Hoover's Hatchery and they are about 2.5 years old. I was wondering if I could more consistently produce this look though. They both lay green eggs and weigh about 5.5 lbs I would guess. The bluish one "Bluesy" is super friendly. Ignora's name says it all. Neither is broody. We don't really care about egg color, but a meatier chicken would be nice. Sorry about the molting. I guess it is that time of the year...

Bluesy

Ignora

Thank you so much for any help you can give!

 

[kstaven]

Line breeding and selective culling is your best bet to set the characteristics. No different than working with SQ birds. A large black EE rooster with bluesey would be a good start.

 

[countyroad1330]

I'm sorry, I know nothing about breeding to enhance color. But I wanted to say, those are very pretty birds, I've never seen chickens that looked like that.

 

[firechicken]

My first thought was a white laced red cornish for the second picture you got there, but I looked again and they seem to have more red then white.

 

[ella]

First of all: Beautiful, beautiful girls!

It would be incredibly difficult to reproduce Bluesy's color. Blue is a difficult color in and of itself and she looks like she has some buff in her as well. If you can find one I'd be inclined to match Bluesy with a Blue Wheaten or Black Ameraucana.

This place has some very nice pictures of Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas and info on them: http://www.greenerpasturesfarm.com/AmeraucanaChickens.html

Ignora on the other hand appears to be Wheaten which is an approved Ameraucana color. You will get very consistent results if you can find a true Ameraucauna breeder (not a commercial hatchery that sells Easter Eggers as Auracana, Americana etc...) and get a Wheaten rooster for her.

You can find Wheaten in other breeds; Penedesenca, Marans, and various Game Bantams for example, but it's not very common. I think you'd get the best results with some real Ameraucanas.

Check out this site for info and pictures on real Ameraucanas:
http://www.ameraucana.org/faq.html

And here you can get info on chicken genetics:
http://home.earthlink.net/~100chickens/index.html
The guy who runs the site is a BYC member and has answered questions for me in a simple friendly way.

Good luck with your color quest!

 

[Blisschick]

I have a few girls the same color as yours, and I think they are some of the prettiest yet!

If you're not so concerned with keeping your chickens "pure", I have found the best way to get the same color is to use a partridge or silver duckwing male. (Bluesy is a blue silver.) Since your female is already blue, then you will only need a male with the black gene to make more blue birds. Some may turn out with normal coloring, but you should get about the same in some form of blue. Right now most of the girls in my pen are either blue silver, blue partridge, or blue birchen (gold and silver), but I do have a couple that are black and silver birchen.

 

[speckledhen]

Bluesy is probably the most beautiful color I've ever seen! I have nothing constructive to add because I am certainly not your genetics go-to-girl, but she is strikingly beautiful.

 

[MNKris]

Thank you everyone!

I suppose I better find me a black Ameraucana roo. Ella thank you for the link!

Blisschick, I really like the coloring on the Partridge Rocks. I was wondering if that would be a good roo candidate too? I would love to see a picture of your flock!

Bluesy is my favorite. I feel lucky that I got her out of a hatchery. Hatchery chickens can be like a box of chocolates...you really never do know what your are going to get. Such a tease..of course, the one that is prettiest, is hardest to reproduce! Grrr...

 

[Blisschick]

I'll have to take some photos today or tomorrow when I get home. I haven't taken any in quite some time.

A Partridge Rock roo would work, but be aware that if you cross a non-beareded and muffed breed with one that is, your chances of getting beards and muffs are 50-50. Also, being a dual purpose bird, don't expect him to add much more meat to your EE's. They're still kind of thin when it comes to meat.

 

[Blisschick]

I caught the girls while feeding, so they posed better for me.

This is my one of my blue silvers. She's the one with the most feathers at this point (the others are molting).

This one I think may be blue partridge. I don't know if that name really exists, but it's the closest I could come to a name.

This one is a dun or "sport". Dun has two copies of the dilute gene. I just recently found out what she was. She's basically white with gold markings.

My barred EE roo.

My blue silver duckwing roo Big Blue.

I have others, but not very good pics...