Chocolate projects?

[smoothmule]

I'm not working on chocolate egg laying chocolate chickens but that's a pretty cool idea.

I am working, slowly, on chocolate colored chickens that lay blue eggs. I have one smallish large fowl Araucana hen with my chocolate carrying Serama rooster who is on the larger end of Serama size. Pee Wee is undersized for a large fowl but much larger than a bantam and she lays a really large, very blue egg. She's rumpless and has one tuft so I hope to have some chicks by spring, I hope. I just put her in with him and he's been breeding her but she's come off a moult so she's not laying right now. Since they're in the garage and have lights on, I hope to get a few chicks sooner or later. I have a pretty nice black Araucana breeding pen that still has improvement to do but getting there so I would love to hatch a couple of chocolate or chocolate carrying cockerels to breed back to some of my black Araucana hens to begin the work on type and egg color

I have one very nice Cuckoo Maran hen, a French type with feathered legs that lays my darkest brow egg here. I might have to try artificial insemination in the spring to try for a that too. My Serama's lay a nice brown egg, not too light but not real dark so I might have a chance for some chocolate cuckoo, Maran/Serama crosses that lay darker eggs. I can always work on the egg color by taking the better chocolate cockerels or chocolate carriers back to darker egg laying Marans.

I love the recessive type chocolate. All it takes for a starter is a chocolate cockerel of the cross I want then take those chocolate chicks back into the breed I'm aiming for to work on type.

 

[BBrock]

Quote:
Seramas do not have the choc gene that would be a dun based color.

 

[smoothmule]

They sure breed like recessive chocolate

and yes, the Serama was the only poultry breed in the US to have sex linked chocolate until the Orpingtons this year.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

Hmm. well i would sure be interested to see how those experiments turn out! Working with the aruacana, they also have the chance of carrying the "mythical" pink egg, which is also recessive it seems. (there are genetic buffs that will argue there is no pink egg, just brown, but to me if it's pink outside and pink inside, than it's pink.) Usually a brown/blue egg cross makes green though? The serama/maran cross seems like it would give a decent dark egg. At any rate, i for one would be interested in the outcomes! Mabe in the future i can buy some eggs?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Most "pink" eggs are merely a lightly tinted egg, with a white inside. I have seen photos of croad langshan eggs that were almost a purple they were so pink, and yes, that is on the inside, too. No one knows the genetics of it...


US serama can carry choc and also dun.

 

[OSUman]

Im working on ABA standard Chocolate Orpington bantams, working on getting the size down and the type better.
Here is my F1 male, black split

 

[smoothmule]

Oh heavens, it will be years before I have project chicks for sale. I'm not even sure I can manage the artificial insemination. The insemination is pretty easy but I tried, in vain, once to collect one of my Araucana roosters and got nothing.

My Serama rooster that carries chocolate is young and virile so I may have a chance. I would really like to become more proficient at it because I hope to have some nice chocolate Serama cockerels this spring and would love to breed one to my double tufted/rumpless black Araucana hen (large fowl).

I've never gotten a pink egg before. I have crossed my cuckoo Maran hens with a couple of my Araucana roosters. Every chick was rumpless, some were tufted and all were pea combed and laid olive green to blue green eggs. I got more tufts with the outcrosses that year than my Araucana hens. My Cuckoo Marans don't lay as dark an egg as they should for Marans but I do have one feather legged hen that does pretty dark eggs. She's living in the Araucana pen right now so she'll be ready for laying eggs I can hatch by my Araucana rooster in that pen. She's cuckoo and the roo is white, recessive white from blue background. He's not tufted but he's got very nice type. The chicks from this cross will be sex linked so I can sort out the pullets as soon as they hatch and cull the cockerels. They're such a nice heavy bird, I may turn them out to grow up to butcher.

 

[pips&peeps]

Quote:
I have already sold split chocolate (not dun) birds to two araucana breeders. They should have pure chocolate babies on the ground in a couple months.

I hope to have chocolate birds that lay chocolate eggs by the end of the year too.

 

[smoothmule]

That is awesome! If you have more split chocolate cockerels this spring I'd love to try that way too. A lot less time and work than the Serama cross.

 

[pips&peeps]

What I sold them were pea combed, clean faced, 1/2 orp 1/2 ameraucana cockerels. So they should have the blue egg gene already.