Getting Green-Egg Laying Bantams

[donrae]

Interesting! My Silkie will probably enjoy it!


My thought was to hatch 16 eggs in the second cross...half of which will carry the blue egg gene/half white egg, half of which will be bantam, 25% large, 25% medium size. Of those 8 carrying blue, there should be 4 bantams. 2 roosters, 2 hens. I can pick out the 2 bantam, blue laying hens easily enough once they begin laying.

This part is incorrect. Size doesn't work that way. If you have a half bantam, half large fowl hen, and breed her to a bantam rooster, you won't get any large fowl birds. All the birds will be a mix of the two sizes, not a percentage being different sizes as you have it spelled out.

 

[Wishapup]

Ah, I see. So size, throughout all crosses, will be an example of incomplete dominance? Continuing to breed back to bantam would produce smaller birds?

 

[Kelsie2290]

Sorry, forgot about that. Like donrae said, size is determined by multiple multiple genes, (not counting some sex linked or dwarf ones) with most crosses you'll wind up with a range of sizes, most between the two parent birds, if you continue to select for smaller size the average bird should continue to get smaller each generation to a certain point.
But what specific crosses will actually get you depends on the individual genetics of each bird, ie, commercial broilers have been selectively bred so that a cross between the two parents gets you offspring that are larger and faster growing than them.

 

[donrae]

Ah, I see. So size, throughout all crosses, will be an example of incomplete dominance? Continuing to breed back to bantam would produce smaller birds?

Yep. Classic selective breeding, continue to breed the smallest to the smallest and you'll get smaller offspring.

 

[Wishapup]

On Step 2 of this project now. My LF EE x bantam mix produced a medium-small EE. She lays a pale-green egg that has gotten lighter over the laying cycle. I will hatch eggs from her and a very small, colourful bantam rooster who has a pea comb.