Green Eggs vs Blue Eggs for A Premium Egg Business

[BigBlueHen53]

@nicalandia there is a thread about Arkansas Blue chickens. The project is terminating from what I can tell. I am very disappointed. Apparently it was a project to produce blue egg laying hens but did not prove comnercially viable as they could not generate a market for the blue eggs.

 

[DarJones]

When Keith Bramwell was at Uark, he developed 2 lines of blue egg layers. One was the blue egg laying Brown Leghorns that I used to start the breeding project for a blue egg laying Silver Laced Wyandotte. The other was a blue Andalusion line that was briefly released around 2012. I used the brown leghorns as a source for the blue egg gene in my crosses with Silver Laced Wyandottes. The genetic reason I needed these particular birds is that they were straight comb blue egg layers. The fastest way to get rose comb blue egg laying chickens is to start with a straight comb blue egg laying breed. I could have used crested legbars, but when I studied the genetics in detail, I found evidence they carry a mutation that reduces total egg production. The brown leghorns had the advantage of straight comb combined with high production of very large bright blue eggs. The negatives are mostly in the diversity of feather colors that hide behind the brown leghorn partridge feather phenotype.

As posted above, blue eggs and pea comb are tightly linked on chromosome 1. A cross with any other comb type can be carried through 3 generations with recovery of pea comb roosters that will almost always be homozygous for blue eggs. It is a little trick to make pure breeding blue egg layers. Unfortunately, I could not leverage this linkage since I needed straight comb blue egg layers.

There were a lot of genetic consequences from using the brown leghorns from Uark. Mostly this was in the form of the zinc white gene which almost totally eliminates porphyrin (makes eggs brown) and in the very diverse feather colors hidden in the brown leghorn genome. I've got most of the feather issues worked out after 10 years and now working on stabilizing the blue egg trait. One more generation with DNA tests should get me to the point that all of my chickens are 100% homozygous for blue eggs.

 

[nicalandia]

@nicalandia there is a thread about Arkansas Blue chickens. The project is terminating from what I can tell. I am very disappointed. Apparently it was a project to produce blue egg laying hens but did not prove comnercially viable as they could not generate a market for the blue eggs.

Let me check the thread. The main issue would be to try and "Create" a blue egg layer, that takes time and resources, it's best just to use what's available like Araucana rooster crossed to Leghorn hens, that should yield a hen that lays about 270 Blue eggs per year. Those could be sold at a premium if advertised successfully to the right market(just not battery cage production but more eco friendly)

 

[FunClucks]

When Keith Bramwell was at Uark, he developed 2 lines of blue egg layers. One was the blue egg laying Brown Leghorns that I used to start the breeding project for a blue egg laying Silver Laced Wyandotte. The other was a blue Andalusion line that was briefly released around 2012. I used the brown leghorns as a source for the blue egg gene in my crosses with Silver Laced Wyandottes. The genetic reason I needed these particular birds is that they were straight comb blue egg layers. The fastest way to get rose comb blue egg laying chickens is to start with a straight comb blue egg laying breed. I could have used crested legbars, but when I studied the genetics in detail, I found evidence they carry a mutation that reduces total egg production. The brown leghorns had the advantage of straight comb combined with high production of very large bright blue eggs. The negatives are mostly in the diversity of feather colors that hide behind the brown leghorn partridge feather phenotype.

As posted above, blue eggs and pea comb are tightly linked on chromosome 1. A cross with any other comb type can be carried through 3 generations with recovery of pea comb roosters that will almost always be homozygous for blue eggs. It is a little trick to make pure breeding blue egg layers. Unfortunately, I could not leverage this linkage since I needed straight comb blue egg layers.

There were a lot of genetic consequences from using the brown leghorns from Uark. Mostly this was in the form of the zinc white gene which almost totally eliminates porphyrin (makes eggs brown) and in the very diverse feather colors hidden in the brown leghorn genome. I've got most of the feather issues worked out after 10 years and now working on stabilizing the blue egg trait. One more generation with DNA tests should get me to the point that all of my chickens are 100% homozygous for blue eggs.

So, any plans to sell some of your blue egg layers (eggs, chicks, etc) once you're satisfied that everything is worked out? Cause I would LOVE to go on your waiting list!!!

 

[DarJones]

I am going to send a large amount of hatching eggs to Glenn at Sandhill Preservation as soon as my chickens go into spring egg laying mode. Give it a bit of time and I'm fairly sure he will offer them.

I currently have 35 chickens and still need to cull 4 or 5 roosters. By the time I am done, I want at most 5 roosters with 25 hens. I also will DNA test a few more roosters soon so I can identify one or two that are homozygous for blue eggs. The young roosters selected from this year's hatch have much better lacing than the homozygous roosters I used in 2022. I plan to leverage that lacing to improve the quality of 2023 chicks.

I should also have noted that I culled down to 35 chickens over the last 8 months. The average is about 9 birds culled to find 1 that has outstanding type traits. I culled down from about 150 chicks to get 15 young birds in my flock.

 

[Amer]

I am going to send a large amount of hatching eggs to Glenn at Sandhill Preservation as soon as my chickens go into spring egg laying mode. Give it a bit of time and I'm fairly sure he will offer them.

I currently have 35 chickens and still need to cull 4 or 5 roosters. By the time I am done, I want at most 5 roosters with 25 hens. I also will DNA test a few more roosters soon so I can identify one or two that are homozygous for blue eggs. The young roosters selected from this year's hatch have much better lacing than the homozygous roosters I used in 2022. I plan to leverage that lacing to improve the quality of 2023 chicks.

I should also have noted that I culled down to 35 chickens over the last 8 months. The average is about 9 birds culled to find 1 that has outstanding type traits. I culled down from about 150 chicks to get 15 young birds in my flock.

May I see pictures?

 

[DarJones]

Let me get some current pictures later today and I will post them. Basically, they look like Silver Laced Wyandottes, but they lay blue eggs.

 

[nicalandia]

Let me get some current pictures later today and I will post them. Basically, they look like Silver Laced Wyandottes, but they lay blue eggs.

You have mentioned that their combs look a bit different? Or was that another line that you were talking about?

 

[DarJones]

My Silver Laced Wyandotte breeding stock came from Jerry Foley (foleyswaterfowl.com). They carry two genes, one for rose comb and another that produces a walnut shaped comb with no back tip. The combination produces a flattened rose comb. I selected last year's roosters all having rose combs. The chicks currently maturing mostly are rose with a few straight. I won't know for sure until they get a little bigger. With ongoing selection for rose comb, I will eventually breed out the straight comb birds.

There is a LOT of work left on these chickens. I have some chicks showing up with too much white, some males with mahogany on the wings, lots of variation in comb type, etc. This is typical when a major genetic cross is being stabilized.

 

[nicalandia]

My Silver Laced Wyandotte breeding stock came from Jerry Foley (foleyswaterfowl.com). They carry two genes, one for rose comb and another that produces a walnut shaped comb with no back tip.

You know, you should create a thread about your Wyandottes, post pictures of how they started(F1), their evolution and what they look today...