Green egg color gene question

[showbarnmom]

Am I correct in thinking you are asking whether all the female chicks will lay blue/green eggs?

If she is a cross between GLW & Amerucana & the father of the chicks is a cochin, then no not all of her pullet chicks will lay blue/green eggs.

All things being equal, statistically, over time, 50% of her pullet chicks will lay blue/green eggs, the other 50% laying non blue/green eggs.

The reason for this is that the autosomal dominant gene O gives blue/green eggs. Your Amerauacana ought to have had a pair of blue/green eggs genes, written as O//O. The wyandotte will have had a pair of the wild type non blue/green eggs written o+//o+. The offspring will each have inherited one of ech of these genes from each parent. Thus your blue egg laying mix has one of each type of gene i.e. O//o+. O is dominant thus she lays blue/gren eggs. However the cochin will have a gene pair which do not carry any blue/green egg genes i.e. o+//o+. So all of the offspring will inherit an o+ gene from the cochin father & will inherit either O or o+ gene from the mix mother. Those pullet chicks which inherit the O gene from the mother, will have a genepair O//o+ & will lay blue/green eggs but the pullet chicks which inherit the o+ gene from the mother will have a gene pair o+//o+ & will not lay blue/green eggs. The males will also have inherited an o+ gene from their father & either an O or an o+ from the mother & have an equal chance of having O//o+ or o+//o+ gene pair.

BUT assuming the Americana parent of your mix hen had a pair of pea comb genes (as well as the pair of blue/green egg genes), you will have a good chance of bing able to see which chicks will have inherited the blue/green egg gene. The reason for this is that the pea comb gene & the blue/green egg gene are close together on the same chromosome so, all things being equal, statistically 96% of all offspring which inherit the pea comb gene will also inherit the blue egg gene. So, you have a pretty good chance that the offspring which inherit a pea comb will also have inherited the blue/geen egg gene.

This may have been made a little more difficult to see, if the wyandotte father of your mix had a rose comb, which your mix inherited along with a pea comb, but essentially even if some of the offspring have inherited both rose & pea comb in the same bird, you ought to be able to see which birds have a pea comb irrespective of what other comb genes they may have inherited.

Hope that helps.

Thank you Morgan. I do not know anything about my EE's lines, except what she is out of, but do not know which was hen/rooster, etc. So I know it will be a wait and see. Hen does have a pea comb, but yellow legs. And I have two of her daughters, who both have slate legs. And they both lay blue eggs. (Bought them all from the same person.) I was looking at the chicks earlier today, and so far two are already showing frizzled feathers.

 

[Morgan Jones]

Thank you Morgan. I do not know anything about my EE's lines, except what she is out of, but do not know which was hen/rooster, etc. So I know it will be a wait and see. Hen does have a pea comb, but yellow legs. And I have two of her daughters, who both have slate legs. And they both lay blue eggs. (Bought them all from the same person.) I was looking at the chicks earlier today, and so far two are already showing frizzled feathers.

The colour of legs won't be any indicator of egg colour. If you watch out for the chicks that have inherited the mother's pea comb gene, it will be a good bet they will also have inherited the mother's blue/green egg gene.

 

[showbarnmom]

This is the hen I believe most of the eggs were from. But her comb isn't nearly as small as my other two EEs

 

[Morgan Jones]

This is the hen I believe most of the eggs were from. But her comb isn't nearly as small as my other two EEs

Pea comb is incompletely dominant so when only one of the genes in the gene pair is pea it can sometimes alter the size of the comb. For instance if one crosses a pea comb bird with a leghorn the offspring will very often (usually) be like a floppy pea comb. Even when floppy they still have that typical tripple row effect.
When the chicks are very tiny a pea comb has an almost flat skin effect, almost as if there is no comb, where the single comb has the little ridge. Good luck.

 

[showbarnmom]

Pea comb is incompletely dominant so when only one of the genes in the gene pair is pea it can sometimes alter the size of the comb. For instance if one crosses a pea comb bird with a leghorn the offspring will very often (usually) be like a floppy pea comb. Even when floppy they still have that typical tripple row effect.
When the chicks are very tiny a pea comb has an almost flat skin effect, almost as if there is no comb, where the single comb has the little ridge. Good luck.

About what age should it become obvious? I've always noticed combs at about 2 weeks.

 

[Morgan Jones]

About what age should it become obvious? I've always noticed combs at about 2 weeks.

I don't have a definite answer. If one is determined & looks carefully, one can have a rough idea within days of hatch, but to be certain one would be best off waiting a few weeks. Even if one needs to wait until they're feathered it is still faster than waiting until they lay, & it's quite a boon if one hopes to choose a male carrying a blue/green egg gene.

It isn't 100% accurate, statistically over time it would work out at 96% accurate, but that is pretty good odds.

 

[showbarnmom]

If I kept a rooster from this hatch, which I would like to do, and he has a pea comb, then bred him back over my blue hens, I would produce blue eggs, in theory.

 

[Morgan Jones]

If I kept a rooster from this hatch, which I would like to do, and he has a pea comb, then bred him back over my blue hens, I would produce blue eggs, in theory.

If you select a male from this hatch, which has a pea comb he will most likely (approx 96%) be carrying one blue/green egg gene. If you breed him to either your blue egg hens, he has, all things being equal, a 50% chance of passing his blue/green egg gene to his offspring. The females would also have a 50% chance of passing their blue gene on to the offspring.
Roughly 3 out of 4 female offspring will lay blue/green eggs; roughly 3 out of 4 males will have at least one blue egg gene.
The remaining 1 out of every 4 chicks will not inherit any blue/green egg gene, will not lay blue/green eggs & cannot pass any blue/green egg genes on to their offspring.

 

[showbarnmom]

Ok, that's what I thought. Thank you

I am in need of another large flock frizzle and they are hard to find here, so was considering saving one back, and now I think it's a good idea.