EE, Barred rock cross

[Jessshan8]

Here are some pics of my 5month old Barred rock, EE crosses. The Roo was a barred rock and the hen was a standard brown/black EE. All her eggs hatched out blue chicks. Is this normal from the cross? They are very good looking chickens.

The Cockerel


The Pullets



​

 

[draye]

Beautiful chicks.

Don't know if you could say with Easter Eggers chickens that anything is normal. There are so many colors and variations of colors and patterns in them that you can never really tell what is going to come out of them.

I really like the what I call Gold/Black patterned ones but I cannot and have never seen a male with that color. Is it even possioble to get one that color?

 

[speckledhen]

It's normal for them to all be barred to some degree since barred males pass the barring gene to all of their chicks.

Why they are blue, I have no idea. Would like to see a picture of the hen. Are you positive of the mother? These obviously carry the blue gene. I have a blue barred EE, who was sired by a BR rooster I used to own over a blue Ameraucana hen, but you don't have a blue gene without it showing, is my understanding. So, how a brown/black looking EE could pass on a blue gene is puzzling to me.

 

[Jessshan8]

i will take a pick of the roo and hen that sired them and post them here for you guys/gals to see.

 

[Illia]

It's very likely that one of your more "brown" colored EE's was carrying blue, you just don't notice it either because it is dark or because it is very minimal, maybe she's a more columbian or buff or pure duckwing type color.

They all turned out solid barred though because wheaten, duckwing, the two most common EE base colors, are recessive to extended black (what solid barred birds carry)

You will see color again if you either breed the F1 offspring to each other or back to colored EE's.

 

[Jessshan8]

Here are the parents. My Roo caught some frostbite last winter when their heat lamp went out during a realy cold night (Montana winters) hence the comb (please do not hate me for it) The hen as I was just looking at her I noticed some tinges of blue on her sides I hope you can pick it up in the pics. She apparently doesn't like her pic taken. So now after reading the posts I believe the blue was from her. ( I am definitely not an expert in this arena.) I would like to explore this color trait but I fear that if I bread the hens to the father that it will wash out. Is this true? can I breed bother to sister with no ill effect? Advice please! I am excited about gaining a flock with this color pattern. One last question will the pullets be broody? Barred rocks almost never go broody from my experience, but as I understand EE's are not a broody breed as well, my hen has never gotten broody.

The 2.5 yr old roo (ROO ROO as my daughters have named him) you can see the two pullets and Cockerel behind the sire


The EE hen

 

[Illia]

I can see a blue-based EE hen in the background of the second to last photo.

 

[Jessshan8]

she is actually a BR Orp cross. That combination is nice they all come out sex linked. My BR Roo and a Orp Hen, I have about ten or so of them. I only kept the hens and gave the cockerels to a family to raise for meat.
The cross comes out like this:
BR/Orp cockerels look like this (gray over black barred) ( i kept this guy though my roo is getting older, he is 8 months old)

The hens look like this (buff over minor black barring)

 

[speckledhen]

With a BR rooster over anything, you cannot have a sex linked offspring. The BR would have to be the mother. BR males pass barring to all their offspring. BR hens pass barring to their sons only, hence sexlinking.

 

[v.cyr]

i dunno... all our BRxBO roosters had light heads when they hatched, while the pullets had dark heads with light spots on the back... didn't know it at the time though, and I won't say I would look to that in the future to sex day olds, but there may be something other than the barring gene at work that could differentiate them


ps, Jessshan8, could you post pics of your BRxBO crosses in the mixed breed photo reference thread… they look a lot different from my BRx BOs