Experiences with hatching cross breeds

[garfieldGeorgia]

The last time I hatched birds, did so with a welsummer rooster and differing hen breeds. The chicks from barred rock hens grew up to look just like their moms, with very little difference. The chicks from rhode island reds grew up to be mostly red but have some welsummer-like feathers on their wings and back. The chicks from production blues... well they were even darker blue, and one other breed I did looked just like their moms but just a few welsummer feathers here and there.

What have y'all's experiences been with cross-breed hatching?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

They're cross breeds. It's not really different than pure breeds when you know the genes behind it

 

[garfieldGeorgia]

They're cross breeds. It's not really different than pure breeds when you know the genes behind it

My main question is this: I'm hoping to start hatching chicks later this year, raising them a lil while, and selling them as pullets. But let's say I was gonna cross two completely different-looking breeds, like a buff orpington rooster with a speckled sussex hen... would they actually be half-and-half color-wise, or inherit most of the genes from their mom and only some from their dad?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

My main question is this: I'm hoping to start hatching chicks later this year, raising them a lil while, and selling them as pullets. But let's say I was gonna cross two completely different-looking breeds, like a buff orpington rooster with a speckled sussex hen... would they actually be half-and-half color-wise, or inherit most of the genes from their mom and only some from their dad?

They would inherit one gene from each parent. What shows depends on what is dominant over the other.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I only have experience with breeds crossed with marans and from that I learned that the dark egg gene is recessive so crossing them with most things will not get you a dark brown egg no matter how much the chicken looks like a marans. I have what should be an olive egger in the coop right now from a black ameraucana rooster and a marans hen. We'll see how that turns out. She looks like an ameraucana with feathered feet.

 

[Coops Dad]

I have a couple of pullets hatched out of an Ameraucana rooster/Marans hen cross. The first one just started laying and this is the egg:

 

[garfieldGeorgia]

I have a couple of pullets hatched out of an Ameraucana rooster/Marans hen cross. The first one just started laying and this is the egg:
View attachment 3391297

Wow!!!!!! Now i really want to get into hatching cross breeds with different egg colors haha.

 

[Sussex19]

My Speckled Sussex hen hatched out 11 chicks, the father is a Cuckoo Orpington x Light Sussex.
I was quite surprised at all the colours I got.
Here is the thread I had on her https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/an-independent-speckled-sussex.1554901/page-3

 

[garfieldGeorgia]

My Speckled Sussex hen hatched out 11 chicks, the father is a Cuckoo Orpington x Light Sussex.
I was quite surprised at all the colours I got.
Here is the thread I had on her https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/an-independent-speckled-sussex.1554901/page-3

Wow, and all those were hatched from that one hen's eggs?

 

[NatJ]

Wow, and all those were hatched from that one hen's eggs?

Yes, she probably did lay all the eggs those chicks hatched from. That hen has a lot of recessive genes, which allows the father's contribution to be more obvious in this set of chicks.

the father is a Cuckoo Orpington x Light Sussex.

That heritage gives him an impressive collection of gene variatns to pass on to his chicks!

A few of the ones I see most obviously:
He's got the genes for white barring, and for not-barred.
He's got the genes for black-all-over chickens, and for chickens that can show other colors.
He's got both the silver and the gold genes.

Just those genes are enough to cause:
--black chicks
--black chicks with white barring
--gold & black chicks (or red & black)
--gold & black chicks with white barring (or red & black with white barring)
--silver & black chicks
--silver & black chicks with white barring

I think there are a few other genes involved in a few of the colors too.

For each of those genes, the hen has the recessive trait, and the rooster shows the dominant trait but also carries the recessive one. So some chicks inherit the recessive from both parents and show it, while some chicks inherit the recessive from their mother and the dominant trait from their father which means they show the dominant one.

(I am leaving out quite a few details, trying to give the basic idea without getting too confusing.)