Dongxiang or Lushi

[RobG7aChattTN]

I know this is an old thread but info on Dongxiang and Lushi - www.aviculture-europe.nl/nummers/13E05A07.pdf . It's not much but maybe will help you

Interesting that it states that homozygous hens have bluer eggs than heterozygous hens. I couldn’t see a difference from my pure Cream Legbars vs. my heterozygous “Sapphire” hens which were Cream Legbar crossed with White Leghorn.

 

[Kindercare]

Just reporting in that I have officially bred a set of black fibro blue-egg laying hens from Svart Hona and Swedish Bluebar stock. Working now on homozygous blue eggs gene and increasing size. Slow and steady...

 

[Lady Gray]

Just reporting in that I have officially bred a set of black fibro blue-egg laying hens from Svart Hona and Swedish Bluebar stock. Working now on homozygous blue eggs gene and increasing size. Slow and steady...

Update? How are they all doing?

 

[Growingthehome]

From what I have found, neither birds have been bred true and both breeds still occasionally lay brown eggs.

 

[Kindercare]

Update? How are they all doing?

Lady Grey,

Sorry for the slow response. I’m still working on it. Getting up my numbers. The hardest part has been trying to find a deep fibro rooster with the blue egg gene, since you can’t tell until you do a cross and wait for the resulting hens to start laying. I think I have one now and will know by September/October.

 

[Sicilianu]

Lady Grey,

Sorry for the slow response. I’m still working on it. Getting up my numbers. The hardest part has been trying to find a deep fibro rooster with the blue egg gene, since you can’t tell until you do a cross and wait for the resulting hens to start laying. I think I have one now and will know by September/October.

which breeds did you use in the original cross? The pea comb gene is closely linked to the blue egg gene so If you used ameraucanas and Ayam Cemani for instance in the initial crosses, most of the pea-combed birds should have one or two copies of the blue egg gene and most of the single-combed birds should not have the blue egg gene.

 

[Sicilianu]

which breeds did you use in the original cross? The pea comb gene is closely linked to the blue egg gene so If you used ameraucanas and Ayam Cemani for instance in the initial crosses, most of the pea-combed birds should have one or two copies of the blue egg gene and most of the single-combed birds should not have the blue egg gene.

Sorry just read your post earlier on. Sounds like both breeds had single combs so it won’t be too easy.. If it’s not too late in your breeding program to add an ameraucana in the mix that might make it easier to select for blue eggs. If also depends on what other traits you’re selecting for so good luck with it! Do you have any photos??

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Sorry just read your post earlier on. Sounds like both breeds had single combs so it won’t be too easy.. If it’s not too late in your breeding program to add an ameraucana in the mix that might make it easier to select for blue eggs. If also depends on what other traits you’re selecting for so good luck with it! Do you have any photos??

Actually no matter what you use the F1 birds will all have one copy of the blue egg gene. It’s the F2 cross (if you inbreed those offspring) where 25% will be homozygous first the blue egg gene, 50% will be heterozygous for the blue egg gene and 25% won’t have the blue egg gene at all. So using a bird with a pea comb might help you eliminate the 25% of males that don’t have a single copy I don’t know if you could reliably pick out the homozygous birds. If you don’t want the pea comb then it’s very hard to get rid of later if you want to keep the blue egg genes. Cream Legbars are great birds and have blue eggs and straight combs. I crossed an Ayam Cemani with a Cream Legbar hen expecting sex-linked birds only to find out that the excessive melanizers overpower the barring gene and both sexes hatch black and feather out black.

 

[Kindercare]

Actually no matter what you use the F1 birds will all have one copy of the blue egg gene. It’s the F2 cross (if you inbreed those offspring) where 25% will be homozygous first the blue egg gene, 50% will be heterozygous for the blue egg gene and 25% won’t have the blue egg gene at all. So using a bird with a pea comb might help you eliminate the 25% of males that don’t have a single copy I don’t know if you could reliably pick out the homozygous birds. If you don’t want the pea comb then it’s very hard to get rid of later if you want to keep the blue egg genes. Cream Legbars are great birds and have blue eggs and straight combs. I crossed an Ayam Cemani with a Cream Legbar hen expecting sex-linked birds only to find out that the excessive melanizers overpower the barring gene and both sexes hatch black and feather out black.

Yes, I used Svart Honas and an F2 Svart Hona x Isbar that the breeder called "Swedish Bluebars". Both single comb. Unfortunately, since I started with only heterozygous F2 hens, I made my job significantly harder. I have been considering getting an Isbar rooster that is homozygous for blue and working from that angle.

Also, and this is mostly anecdotal, but I got the BBS gene mixed in my flock from the Isbars and it seems that the blue egg gene seems to follow blue/splash gene somewhat.

 

[Sicilianu]

Actually no matter what you use the F1 birds will all have one copy of the blue egg gene. It’s the F2 cross (if you inbreed those offspring) where 25% will be homozygous first the blue egg gene, 50% will be heterozygous for the blue egg gene and 25% won’t have the blue egg gene at all. So using a bird with a pea comb might help you eliminate the 25% of males that don’t have a single copy I don’t know if you could reliably pick out the homozygous birds. If you don’t want the pea comb then it’s very hard to get rid of later if you want to keep the blue egg genes. Cream Legbars are great birds and have blue eggs and straight combs. I crossed an Ayam Cemani with a Cream Legbar hen expecting sex-linked birds only to find out that the excessive melanizers overpower the barring gene and both sexes hatch black and feather out black.

yes I’m familiar with genetics. I was saying in terms of longterm selection. This is assuming of course that you are ok with pea comb birds. And yes, in this case it would only tell you that most single combed birds don’t have the blue egg gene in the specific crossing program I mentioned- the pea-combed individuals would be homozygous or heterozygous in subsequent generation.

You could also do a cross with the opposite linkage such as something like Silkie x Cream Legbar. In this case the blue egg gene would be linked to the single comb gene and you would be able to easily select single combed individuals in F2/F3 etc generations who should also be mainly pure for the blue egg gene. Two things with this cross- 1) silkies’ level of fibromelanosis is not as much as Ayam Cemani 2) silkies have both the pea comb and rose comb genes. Rose comb is not linked to the blue egg gene so rose combed individuals would also mainly lay blue eggs, but it would still be easy to select for single-combed individuals.