EE brown egg-how common is it?

[Broxi]

I have three EE and I get the spectrum of colors. 1 blue, 1 green, and 1 brown. All were bought at the same time from a local farm store so I have no idea what hatchery they came from and they are all partridge type coloration.

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Even tho there is no realistic way to answer "how common are brown eggs from easter eggers?", it IS possible to answer the question "What PERCENTAGE of my easter egger eggs will be blue? green? brown?, IF u know the egg color your parent roosters and hens hatched from. (Not possible to know that info from hatchery easter eggers, only those u hatch yourself). The simplest answer is if both parents hatched from a blue egg, all their resulting female offspring will lay blue. (And males will carry 2 blue egg genes). If either parent hatched from a green egg, & the other blue, the resulting chicks will lay 75% blue and 25% green. If one parent carries 2 blue egg genes and the other 2 brown, all resulting female chicks will lay green eggs. If each parent carries one blue egg gene & one brown gene, resulting female offspring will lay 50% green, 25% blue & 25% brown. (That is statistical average from a large enough number of offspring). All the above info is derived using a basic punnett square.
And then there's the white egg. Blue egg color is dominant to white. So if one parent carries 2 white genes & the other 2 blue genes, all female offspring eggs will be light blue. An easter egger parent with one blue gene and one brown gene, mated to a parent carrying 2 white egg genes, will result in 50% light blue & 50% light brown. I was hesitant to wade into Any genetics discussion, since I am farrrrrr from a genetics expert. But all the info i just stated is info i read, derived, & memorized from the genetics forum soon after my easter eggers began making their own babies. So if MY original source of info and understanding is incorrect, hoping a true genetics expert will step in and educate us all. Tu!

 

[Ridgerunner]

All the above info is derived using a basic punnett square.

Set up your punnett square with these symbols. Brown or green has nothing to do with this punnett square, this square only deals with blue and not-blue.

Capitol "O" is the dominant blue shell gene. Small "o" is the recessive not-blue shell gene. Small o is not technically a white shell gene because it doesn't color the egg shell, it allows it to default to another color. In the absence of the blue gene, that default is white.

Set it up so the father and mother both are Oo, one blue shell gene and one not-blue. Since O is dominant both will have hatched from a blue or green egg so that meets your starting requirement. If you solve the square you will see that 25% will be pure for the blue shell gene, OO. 50% will be split at that gene pair, Oo. These pullets will lay blue or green eggs since they have one dominant blue shell gene. But 25% will lay a white or brown egg because they will be pure for the not-blue gene, oo.

Since the blue shell gene is dominant it can be hard to work with. You don't know if a chicken has OO or Oo because of shell color. About the best you can say if that if a chicken hatches from a colored egg it has a minimum of 50% chance having at least one copy of that blue shell gene.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I am not trying to cause drama, but I feel strongly that saying the Araucana is developed from "EEs" in Chile is dismissive of their history and their own breeds of chickens.

Thank you for your comments. I think you've proven that not only can we not agree on a definition of EE as I said in my post (you may also notice my ? after EE) we can have trouble agreeing on what an Auracana is. Some people on here sometimes think the original colored egg layer from Chile as an Araucana. The UK Araucana breed is quite different from the US breed called Aruacana.

The point I was trying to make was that EE's did not all derive from the Auracana or Ameraucana breeds. The UK Araucana, the US Araucana and Ameraucana, and the other colored egg breeds (legbar for example) derived from the original colored egg layers from Chile, whatever you wish to call them.

Dongxiang from China

Do you have a link that discusses the mutation of this blue egg shell gene. This is the first I've heard about that, it would be fascinating to read about. Thanks.

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Tu very much for the info @Ridgerunner! I feel sure others appreciate it too. I currently have well over 100 easter eggers; broody hens have been hatching them for years. Want to Fully understand egg color genetics, and will study your info carefully. Ive also been following the current ongoing genetics thread discussing feather colors and all the various genes involved. My newest goal has been to create easter egger chickens as varied & colorful as their eggs! HAVE gotten some beautiful feather colors, but mostly still have NO clue what im doing . Genetics still mostly seems like a foreign lamguage to me, or like a first-grader trying to understand a college course. But i will keep trying to learn. Tu again for your response.