Color? Help?!

[Adrisducks]

Hi if I was to breed this guy with a dark blue female...what would be the color? I'm about to get 3 of them in a week (hopefully)

Thank you so much I'm just so excited!

 

[sylviethecochin]

All chicken colour patterns are mostly determined by the chicken's e-locus genes, which determine where the black and gold go on a chicken (all chicken colours are based on either black or gold).

In the case of a blue chicken, the E-locus gene is E, or Extended Black. Extended Black is a very dominant gene. It makes the entire chicken black (or, if the chicken also possesses a blue dilution gene, entirely blue.) Since (I assume) they're pure blue, they'll be E/E.

Your boy above is, I'm going to guess, partridge? That's e^b/e^b. It's recessive.

If he mates with blue, you get one e^b and one E. So the chicks'll be E/e^b. The extended black will make the chicken almost entirely black. I say almost, because that e^b will still peek through, especially on the males. You'll see some leakage, either silver or gold (probably gold) on the shoulders and chests and necks.

Because blue is modified black, the hen'll also pass a blue dilution gene (Bl) on. Blue dilutes black. If there are two copies of blue (Bl/Bl), you get splash. If there's only one copy of blue (Bl/bl), you get blue.

Since Dad's black, he'll pass black (bl) on to his offspring.

Since Mum's blue, she can pass Bl or bl to her offspring.

The resulting chicks'll be Bl/bl (Blue) or bl/bl (black).