EE Question and a Recommendation

[Daidohead]

I am a genetically challenged carpenter with a small flock of pure breed EE's. ( thought you'd like that ). Are the traits that my birds have what will show up in their offspring, or will there be forever oddities showing up since they are mixed breeds ?

My grade school music teacher told me that if I tried real hard and practiced a lot, One day I might be able to play the stereo. Genitics is a lot like that for me....I just don't get it. Is there a book ( written in laymens terms ) you all can recommend that might help me understand the basics ?

 

[farmerlor]

Oh, you'll get some surprises alright. I raise EEs. We have a "purebred" EE hen who lays a pretty tan egg. She's mostly white with some buff mottling. My EE roo is a magnificent multi-colored boy. Their offspring is my avatar and she lays truly ugly mud colored olive eggs. I do find that the calm, friendly attitude seems to breed true but sometimes you get a bird who's got no tufts when both parents had them, I've had odd colors (a blue laced bird) crop up from time to time and you just never know what's going to come out of that egg. I've got a whole incubator full of surprises right now. Can't wait to see what I get.

 

[Nostalchic]

I'm sure there are others, but I have a copy of "Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds" by Carol Ekarius, available from lots of sources including libraries, which has a short chapter on the basics of genetics ('Genetics 101') that I think is pretty understandable. It isn't super thorough, so won't allow you to predict outcomes, exactly, from a mixture of breeds like EE's are (what could?) but it's pretty good. And it has beautiful photos and descriptions of poultry breeds.