Egg color genetics?

[Luckyleaf]

I have a newbie question about hatching eggs. Does the color of the eggs guarentee the color that chick will grow up to lay herself. For example, if I pick only the darkest brown eggs out of a selection of two dozen marans eggs, would those chickens lay very good dark brown eggs?

Another example is only incubating the pinkish eggs from a large selection of easter egger eggs, so that I can do selective breeding for roos and hens that came from pink eggs to produce future pink layers?

Looking forward to your thoughts. Thanks!

 

[Alaskan]

For example, if I pick only the darkest brown eggs out of a selection of two dozen marans eggs, would those chickens lay very good dark brown eggs?

Well....

There are a bunch of different genes that go into laying brown eggs, especially super dark brown.

So... if you only hatch super dark brown eggs, there is a good chance that at least some of those chicks will lay super dark brown, but most definitely not all.

Pink eggs, and light brown, also have a bunch of genes at work, but not as many as with super dark brown.... so the chicks hatched from the pink eggs, have a good chance of laying pink eggs...but still not all of them will.

 

[tjb]

I do not have really genetic knowledge, just what I have done myself... I have a black copper maran roo that I have experimented with various colors. Maran hen eggs=the dark maran color. when crossing them with my CLB {blue eggs} the eggs were a variety of dull greenish to darker green. And brown eggs=just shades darker toward the maran.
Also, experimented with a white gene roo and the blue eggs turned lighter or whited. brown eggs turned to the greenish color. fun experiment

 

[MontanaChickDoc]

So I have a cream legbar roo crossed over an appenzeller spitzhauben. Will the offspring lay blue eggs? What is funny looking is I guess he got to my cuckoo marans too - never seen a crested cuckoo marans before. In fact, the more days go on, the more crested birds I seem to have!! I guess he was busy...almost as busy as my NN roo.

 

[Alaskan]

I am not sure if cream legbars tend to have 2 copies of the blue egg gene.

If he does have 2.... then all girls will have a blue egg gene and will lay light blue eggs.

If he has only 1, then half of the girls will have the blue egg gene.

 

[jas humbert]

Maybe this is too simplistic but I'm trying to break this down to basics before dealing with exceptions

Each parent has two genes for a given item (the one you can see -genotype and the one you can't- phenotype)and each parents contributes one of those two genes to the offspring at random-not necessarily the dominant one you can see. The most dominant gene of the two the chick receives determines what characteristic the offspring will display. Where it gets complicated is:
1)many genes are incompletely dominant (like gene for dark brown eggs + gene for blue eggs usually produces some shade of dark or muddy green egg layer) or there are way more than two possible choices
2) more than one gene is involved in the desired outcome -I know there are several genes and modifier genes involved in feather color and pattern and I suspect there is more than one for egg color too). And that assumes you know what genes parents have. A purebred copper maran may be assumed to have double genes for the dark brown color but once you start mixing breeds you never know what the hidden gene is.

Several generations of choosing only the darkest eggs to hatch, should eventually yield darker eggs for the most part but short term you are going to get a variety of shades as those hidden recessive genes pair up sometimes.

 

[Nekopan]

Bumping up this thread because I think I have a decent grasp on basic egg colour genetics but I can’t really logic this out for myself...

I’ve had chickens for a couple years but I’m new to rooster-keeping. I currently have 3 pullets that lay blue eggs and 1 hen that lays light brown. My cockerel is an olive egger (BCM x Silverudd/Isbar). Does he pass on “olive” eggs? Or is it from each parent, so he could pass on Marans dark brown or Silverudd green?

If the latter... does that mean combined with my light brown layer there’s the potential for offspring that lay dark brown eggs? Would the blue layers’ offspring be likely to have blue eggs or olive eggs or... spearmint? My brain is starting to hurt.

 

[Alaskan]

Dark brown eggs have a bunch of genetics behind them... so since your rooster is a BCM cross, if you cross him with your light brown layer the chicks could have genetics for anything from light to medium brown.

You will not get dark brown.

The rooster probably has one blue egg gene (but could have zero). So chicks will have a 50/50 chance of getting a blue egg gene from dad.

 

[jas humbert]

@Nekopan I agree with Alaskan. If we assume the rooster has one gene for greenish/blue isbar type eggs and one gene for brown from the maran (?), he could contribute either to the chick.
Meaning;

1) if he contributes the ibar egg color gene x your blue egg layer you would get some variation on blue/spearmint/green. I suspect there is some other gene that modifies the blue to the greenish egg color and he may contribute that, meaning greener eggs, or he may contribute whatever the marans have in that spot which may do nothing (?) in this combination meaning blue eggs. Or it may end up more complicated -there are likely several genes that modify egg color. With your brown egg hen you will likely get some variation of green -maybe darker or muddier green but maybe? not as dark as typical olive eggers- especially if he isn't throwing his one copy of whatever extra darkens the maran eggs. The strongest colors seem to come from double copies of genes so probably not brilliant blue or super dark brown egg colors.

2) If he contributes the brown egg gene from the maran side instead x your blue egg layers will be some variation on green/olive but again likely not as dark as first generation maran based olive eggers. But his dark brown egg gene x your brown layer would equal some shade of brown egg- most likely light or medium since the darkest maran eggs seem to need the modifiers from both parents.

Does this help?

 

[Nekopan]

@Alaskan @jas humbert

Thank you! I think I get it now.