Crossing Laced Chickens?

[Omniskies]

I'm not sure what was originally crossed to make them, but I know that crossing Gold Laced Wyandottes into them is a no-no. The flock of Blue Laced Reds that McMurray Hatchery bought out were crossed with Gold Laced, which dulls the red into a gold and is apparently impossible to revert once the damage is done.

More information can be found here: http://bluelacedred.com/Hatchery or Breeder.html

I almost bought some of McMurray's BLRs before I came across this information. I waited forever to get my birds and finally have three young pullets and a cockrel that are the nice dark red color. I also have a chick that hatched out last week out of the same line. For once I'm hoping I got a rooster.

 

[Blisschick]

Quote:
I do know that SL was used in the beginning, and probably blue to get the color introduced into the gene pool, but from there, I've never been able to find any definitive history. All I know is that they were developed in Germany and imported to the US in the 1980's.

 

[Blisschick]

Quote:
One of the reasons the gold dulls the red is because the GLW lack the mahogany gene, which deepens gold to that nice dark reddish-brown you see in RIRs. If you breed GL into your flock of BLR, you're basically lowering the chances of any offspring inheriting the mahogany gene and messing up the dark red coloring. So actually, breeding GL into your flock is just diluting the color. It's not that hard to fix, really, if you have birds that are showing the mahogany coloring to some degree, it just takes time. The real damage that has been done to commercial stock is the loss of body type and lousy combs. That is harder to fix than color.

My original stock came from McKinney & Govero before they sold to MM, and I had a few where you could tell they had GL bred into them, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't work with it and fix it in a generation or two. I've just made sure that I've culled any offspring that were brassy or off-color and kept the ones that were the darkest. I've added stock from two other BLR breeders that have very deep mahogany and am now getting some beautifully colored birds out of them. I'm hoping this spring I'll be hatching some of my best chicks yet.

 

[Henk69]

Quote:
Not true, if you put the male over the female.
Silver roo S/S delivers all silver offspring, the males are called golden (brassy, impure silver) S/s+.

Red vs Gold:
Mahogany is dominant over non mahogany, but pure (2 copies Mh/Mh) is probably better. Also the fine tuning would be messed up, as in any cross.

 

[Blisschick]

I'm only repeating what a BLRW breeder told me on a BLRW board. I was told it wasn't the best thing to do, though. I haven't tried it myself because I haven't had the need.