Genetics Gurus Please Help! Working Towards True Breeding Olive Eggers

[Starbawk]

I'm tired, & have a headache so I apologize if I was alittle snappy.

It may be that I'm just missing some information that you know but didn't relate I think we may be getting confused about which bird we're talking about.

My question was how you know that your rooster has two copies of the blue egg gene rather than just one. As another poster pointed out, yes you can certainly have a rooster one one blue egg gene pass that on, as you say happened with this rooster's daughter when you bred him to a brahma. So the daughter has one blue and one brown gene and lays green eggs. If you breed her she has a 50% chance of passing on a blue gene.

If your roo has a blue gene and a white gene, or a blue gene and a brown gene, rather than two blue genes, and your plan is to cross his daughter back to him, only half the offspring will lay green, those that inherit either his blue and her brown, or her blue and his brown. A quarter will have double blue, and a quarter will have double brown. If he has two blue genes, however, half will be green and half will be blue. Either way only half will lay green eggs.

Now what you could do from there is select any offspring that lay blue eggs. That hen will definitely have two blue genes because the only way she can lay blue eggs from that parentage would be to get a double blue. But again the only way to get to a generation of chicks with 100% chance of green eggs would be to find a rooster that lays dark brown to breed her back to.

Because you can't know the gentics of any rooster offspring that you get from these crosses you will not have a generation where you can predict 100% that all the female chicks will lay green eggs. There's just no way of getting around it that I can see.

 

[Starbawk]

Then, 25% of the offspring would have two blue egg shell genes, it’s just a matter of test-breeding to find the ones that do.

Ha. Jinx.

 

[MysteryChicken]

You could. Whatever you do won’t change his genetics, it will just confirm whether all his offspring get a blue egg shell gene or half of them. You don’t need to do it unless the results of test breeding will actually change your breeding plans.

I know it won't change his genetics.

Well, I need strong blue egg genes for the plan of Pastel green eggs.

 

[MysteryChicken]

It may be that I'm just missing some information that you know but didn't relate I think we may be getting confused about which bird we're talking about.

My question was how you know that your rooster has two copies of the blue egg gene rather than just one. As another poster pointed out, yes you can certainly have a rooster one one blue egg gene pass that on, as you say happened with this rooster's daughter when you bred him to a brahma. So the daughter has one blue and one brown gene and lays green eggs. If you breed her she has a 50% chance of passing on a blue gene.

If your roo has a blue gene and a white gene, or a blue gene and a brown gene, rather than two blue genes, and your plan is to cross his daughter back to him, only half the offspring will lay green, those that inherit either his blue and her brown, or her blue and his brown. A quarter will have double blue, and a quarter will have double brown. If he has two blue genes, however, half will be green and half will be blue. Either way only half will lay green eggs.

Now what you could do from there is select any offspring that lay blue eggs. That hen will definitely have two blue genes because the only way she can lay blue eggs from that parentage would be to get a double blue. But again the only way to get to a generation of chicks with 100% chance of green eggs would be to find a rooster that lays dark brown to breed her back to.

Because you can't know the gentics of any rooster offspring that you get from these crosses you will not have a generation where you can predict 100% that all the female chicks will lay green eggs. There's just no way of getting around it that I can see.

I was talking about the rooster, mainly.

Well, technically the rooster doesn't have to be a dark brown layer, only if you want dark olive eggs. Pastel green is my goal, which requires light brown, brown, or cream layers.

 

[Starbawk]

I was talking about the rooster, mainly.View attachment 2836307Well, technically the rooster doesn't have to be a dark brown layer, only if you want dark olive eggs. Pastel green is my goal, which requires light brown, brown, or cream layers.

Correct, to get green (not olive) eggers, you would use tan for light green.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Sorry for steering the thread to another direction, but I had similar questions.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Correct, to get green (not olive) eggers, you would use tan for light green.

Yep.

 

[nicalandia]

@NatJ
@RoostersAreAwesome
@nicalandia

I've been summoned here.

I am going to keep this very short and simple.

Stay away from Legbars, they have unwanted traits like single comb(it makes selecting the Backcross Roosters a gamble), and carry unwanted whitening genes from their Leghorn ancestry.

Use Pure Ameraucana rooster instead. their peacomb blue eggshell linkage will come handy

 

[Starbawk]

Can you tell me more about the whitening genes and how the genetics around that work?

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I've been summoned here.

I am going to keep this very short and simple.

Stay away from Legbars, they have unwanted traits like single comb(it makes selecting the Backcross Roosters a gamble), and carry unwanted whitening genes from their Leghorn ancestry.

Use Pure Ameraucana rooster instead. their peacomb blue eggshell linkage will come handy

So true breeding olive eggers are possible?