Easter Egger club!

[cicknmama]

You have about a 25% chance of an olive egger.

Why so little?

 

[lightchick]

Just got a new 'Ameraucana' chick for my broody to raise! How old do you think she is?

 

[junebuggena]

Maybe two weeks? Definitely more than one week, and less than three.

 

[lizardandchicks]

What type of hen is your momma? She looks very similar to our blue laced red Wyandotte who raised our chicks. Just missing the blue laced part

 

[SizzleQueen]

This is my beautiful EE's baby.. daddy is a black silkie. I am absolutely inlove with how she got a all black body but shimmering white feathering!

 

[lightchick]

What type of hen is your momma? She looks very similar to our blue laced red Wyandotte who raised our chicks. Just missing the blue laced part  

She's a mix. Probably has some Brahma in her.

 

[junebuggena]

My red columbian cockerel. 13 weeks old


Cocoa. The smallest girl I have and the most inquisitive. This one is always up to something.

 

[2cute2pass]

Yay! An EE club! It gets kind of tiring when people put down EEs (maybe unintentionally) because they are mutts.... Anyway, I need to go take some pics, so I'll post pictures later but here are my names of my EEs!

Rudolph Raphael Valentino (our EE roo's full name, nicknamed Rudy)
Big Mama
Chixsie
Tristan
Sunshine
Red
Maddy
Chocolate
Quail
Gretchen
Niquita
Kohla Faye
Moxie

Anyway, I have too many EEs so there will be at least 13 pics... Sorry

Is it even possible to have too many? lol.

 

[2cute2pass]

Gorgeous baby.

 

[Gryphon]

I'm sure on one of these pages, someone explains the EE. Which birds do u breed with the Ameracauna to get Easter Eggers?
I see lots of pretty colors. I love the Greys and buffs

Technically any Ameracauna that doesn't meet the requirements for color is an EE, since for chicken breeds it goes based off of specific traits rather than actual parentage like horses or dogs. To put it another way, EE's are a "grade" blue egg layer, much like if you see a Quarterhorse you know it's that breed, but without papers proving its parentage it's called "grade Quarterhorse".

Blue is a dominant egg color so a bird only needs one copy of the blue gene to lay blue eggs/pass on the blue gene half the time. Assuming you have an EE that has only one copy of the blue gene if you cross it with a white egg layer, half will be blue egg layers. Cross it with a brown egg layer, half will inherit the blue egg gene, but brown is a complex color and will likely "tint" the blue so it looks more greenish or even grey, and half the offspring are regular brown egg layers. Cross an EE with a very dark brown layer and half are olive eggers and half dark brown egg layers.

If it has two copies of the blue egg gene then 100% of the offspring will inherit at least one blue gene even if crossed to a breed that has no blue egg laying genes.

Check out this site for a very clear illustration on egg color genetics: https://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/gms2-breeding-for-blue-eggs/