Genetics For Egg Color

[ArcticMermaid]

I have a genetics question. I have a blue ameraucana (PS stock) and white leghorns. I am getting a quad of cream legbars. my plan is to put the ameraucana over the legbar hens and the legbar roo over the white leghorns. Then grow out some chicks and keep the pullets from those breeding's and put the pullets from am/cl in with the cl roo and pullets from that pen in with the am roo. My question is will the chicks from those mixed pullets covered by pure roos make super blue/ sapphire blue eggs? I know that i have not worded this properly but this will be my first project breeding attempt

 

[donrae]

SBEL or Sapphires are simply a mix of a blue egger with a Leghorn of some type. The blue egger passes on the blue shell gene, the Leghorn passes on larger egg size and high production. If your birds have Leghorn and some type of blue egger, feel free to call them SBEL or Sapphires. If they don't have the Leghorn blood, I wouldn't advertise them under those names as folks expect the higher production rate from the Leghorn blood. I know Legbars are good egg layers, but I don't think they match a pure Leghorn for sheer quantity.

 

[MeepBeep]

[COLOR=141823]I have a genetics question. I have a blue ameraucana (PS stock) and white leghorns. I am getting a quad of cream legbars. my plan is to put the ameraucana over the legbar hens and the legbar roo over the white leghorns. Then grow out some chicks and keep the pullets from those breeding's and put the pullets from am/cl in with the cl roo and pullets from that pen in with the am roo. My question is will the chicks from those mixed pullets covered by pure roos make super blue/ sapphire blue eggs? I know that i have not worded this properly but this will be my first project breeding attempt[/COLOR]

The Ameraucana over the Cream Legbars should produce a diluted mint blue egg or possibly light mint green egg as most US Cream Legbars have poor egg color... The color of the egg will vary in the offspring mostly because the Cream Legbar color is not consistance in US lines, but it's still unlikely any will retain the same shade of blue seen in the Ameraucana...

The Cream Legbar roo over the White leghorns will produce a diluted light mint blue egg or possibly diluted light mint green egg since the blue color is dominate over white but those offspring will not breed true for blue egg color as they are split white/blue egg color...

The pullets from the Ameraucana over the Cream Legbar crossed back to a Cream Legbar rooster should all have blue eggs but you will likely see the color diluted even further towards the light mint blue egg or possibly light mint green egg...

Crossing back the Ameraucana/Cream Legbar offspring with the Ameraucana roo should slightly improve the blue egg color..

You didn't say what you would do with the Cream Legbar/White Leghorn off spring but remember they are only split to blue so they won't breed true for blue eggs unless bred to a blue layer, until you breed out the white gene...

In the end if your goal is a super blue egg color don't use the current US Cream Legbars as their egg color is really diluted right now... If your goal is to try to recreate the UK super blue sapphire 'line' don't expect good egg color unless you devote a lot of time to breeding a better egg color..

 

[ArcticMermaid]

I am going to get some from a breeder that his line is supposed to be recently imported from the UK. I am planning on putting the pullets from the first crossing into opposite pens. Would it be better to start 2 pens of Ameraucana X Legbars

 

[ArcticMermaid]

SBEL or Sapphires are simply a mix of a blue egger with a Leghorn of some type. The blue egger passes on the blue shell gene, the Leghorn passes on larger egg size and high production. If your birds have Leghorn and some type of blue egger, feel free to call them SBEL or Sapphires. If they don't have the Leghorn blood, I wouldn't advertise them under those names as folks expect the higher production rate from the Leghorn blood. I know Legbars are good egg layers, but I don't think they match a pure Leghorn for sheer quantity.

The White Leghorns I have are pure and are non hatchery stock

 

[MeepBeep]

I am going to get some from a breeder that his line is supposed to be recently imported from the UK.

There have been 3 legal imports of Cream Legbars into the US, all by Greenfire Farms and none of those 3 lines has decent egg color...

The most recent import line was the Rees and that line still has very poor egg color...

 

[ArcticMermaid]

There have been 3 legal imports of Cream Legbars into the US, all by Greenfire Farms and none of those 3 lines has decent egg color...

The most recent import line was the Rees and that line still has very poor egg color...

Rees was the one line he mentioned some of his stock being. Sounds like I would be better off just crossing my Ameraucana roo with my leghorns. Then growing out some of the pullets and getting a 2nd Ameraucana roo to go over them

 

[MeepBeep]

There have been 3 legal imports of Cream Legbars into the US, all by Greenfire Farms and none of those 3 lines has decent egg color...


The most recent import line was the Rees and that line still has very poor egg color...

Rees was the one line he mentioned some of his stock being. Sounds like I would be better off just crossing my Ameraucana roo with my leghorns. Then growing out some of the pullets and getting a 2nd Ameraucana roo to go over them

If your goal is to have an improved blue egg layer with a good blue egg color that would probably be a better option, IMO... Just beware that if you want the offspring to breed true for blue eggs it's going to take you multiple generations to sort out the homozygous blue gene carriers in the offspring...

 

[donrae]

Or, if your current rooster has all the qualities you want, just put the pullets back under him. Breeding daughter to father is perfectly acceptable in chickens. If you start with healthy stock, you should be able to line breed for 3-4 generations without issues.

 

[ArcticMermaid]

Or, if your current rooster has all the qualities you want, just put the pullets back under him. Breeding daughter to father is perfectly acceptable in chickens. If you start with healthy stock, you should be able to line breed for 3-4 generations without issues.

He is beautiful only reason he is disqualified from showing is 2 feather tips on his back has copper leakage