EEs bred with other breeds

[CarolJ]

I have an EE rooster that is with a mix of other breeds. I just put the following eggs into an incubator last week - and I'm anxious to see what I get:

EE rooster/ancona hen
EE rooster/EE hen (4 different EE hens - 3 lay green eggs, one lays a cream colored egg)
EE rooster/New Hampshire
EE rooster/black Jersey giant

I have 3 Araucana pullets that are POL - and the rooster has been mating them, but they haven't started laying yet. It will be interesting to see what chicks I get from them later.

I've searched all the EE genetics threads I can find - and I figure I'll have to wait until the pullets I get from these mixes start laying to find out what color eggs they'll lay. And as far as feather color and patterns - that's a toss-up, too.

My question: Since the rooster is an EE, does that mean that all the chicks will be EEs, too?

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is no legal authority running around fining or arresting people if they call chickens EE's when they really are not. I don't know of any legislative body that has the legal authority to officially define what an EE is. As a result, you get different people with different definitions if what they call an EE.

Some people think any chicken that hatches from an EE parent is an EE regardless of the egg color it hatched from. I don't. I think it has to at least have one parent that has the blue egg gene before I would call it an EE. And if a hen did not lay blue or green eggs or if the rooster did not have at least some chicks that showed the blue egg gene, I would not consider them EE's. To me, EE's are tied to the blue egg gene. But that is only me.

To me, the problem with an EE is that you often do not know if it is pure for the blue egg gene or not. Since the blue egg gene is dominant, all you need is one of the pair to be the blue and the hen will lay a blue or green egg. But if the parent is split for the blue egg gene, meaning that it has one blue egg gene and one not blue egg gene, you never know which gene it will pass down to its offspring. That makes roosters even harder. Unless you know at least one of its parents was pure for the blue egg gene or unless you have hatched chicks using him with hens that you know do not have the blue egg gene and got blue or green egg laying hens, you just don't know whether he has any blue egg genes or not.

Some hatcheries sell chicks that do not have the blue egg gene as EE's, some even incorrectly calling them Ameraucanas or Araucanas. (Why not confuse the issue as much as we possibly can?) If they hatched from eggs that were blue or green, I don't have a huge problem with that, but I'm not convinced they all hatch only the blue or green eggs and sell them as EE's.

Bottom line is that you can call them what you want and some people will agree with you, whichever way you go.