Cross-breeding colours, how does it work?

[elliechooks]

If I was to breed different colours within a breed what happens? For example if I put a white leghorn cockerel with a brown leghorn hen, the offspring would still be leghorns, but will I get a few white and a few brown or is it a bit like mixing paint and I end up with a mixed up mess??

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Not either or, and not like mixing paint.

Chicken genetics are pretty complicated.

 

[BGMatt]

If I was to breed different colours within a breed what happens? For example if I put a white leghorn cockerel with a brown leghorn hen, the offspring would still be leghorns, but will I get a few white and a few brown or is it a bit like mixing paint and I end up with a mixed up mess??

Color genetics CAN get complicated. This particular example is pretty simple though. White Leghorns are dominant white, so if you cross it to a Light Brown Leghorn the white will cover the black on the bird (generally white does a poor job of covering red color though) leaving you something that looks like a Red Pyle, subsequent matings would refine the pattern. Which is how that variety was developed in the various breeds it exists in.

 

[donrae]

If you did that particular cross, the birds in question technically would be leghorns, but not identifiable as such, so everyone would call them mixed breed birds--just sayin'.