Help Me set up my breeding pens **color newbie**

[Msbear]

Hey everyone, I have a bunch of different colors and am not quite sure how to put them all together. I have a beautiful mature IB white eye cock that I love but, would like to steer more toward black shoulder so I may free range him with another young IB black shoulder male with no hens.









Here is a list of my males

3 year old black shoulder split midnight
2 year old black shoulder
3 year old dark IB pied

Here are my girls

2 silver pied? (one gal is in the pic above)
2 india blue
2 black shoulder (though one of them is very dark and showing stippling on her breast.. not sure what's up with that)

I was thinking of putting the pied male with the black shoulder hens and the black shoulder male with the pied hens. Would I get at least some black shoulder pied from those crossings or would they be all splits?

Any help would be appreciated..

 

[zazouse]

I don't know but they sure are perty

 

[3BirdGirlz]

You will only get BS if the non-BS are already slit to BS. To get Black shoulder it has to be BSxBS...All will be BS. BS x split BS = some will be BS and others show regular IB pattern....BS x non BS= regular color split to BS. Beautiful birds you have!

 

[connerhills]

msbear. my 2 cents... First where do you want to go with the colors ... or what do you want as a result ? Most of the time starting like you are now , it is not this generation but the next one that you will see results.. You will not get any B S birds unless you have a BS hen or one that has the BS gene. If it is more BS you want I would put the silver pied hens with the BS split to MN and the offspring or some of them would have the BS gene, the White the Pied,, the white eye, the Midnight , the silver pied but they all will mostly look like blues all would be split to BS. I would put the other BS male with the BS hens. Possible the one you say has stippling on here may be a Sieple pattern, I would have to see the hen to tell. That would leave the pied male with the blue hens and that would give you birds split to pied. You of course have to keep good records and band or mark the chicks so you can ID them when they are ready to breed in 2 yrs. there are other combinations you can do and maybe some others will give their opinions.. connerhillls

 

[Msbear]

Thanks so much... I thought it would be more complicated than just breeding black shoulder and getting 50/50. I'm a chicken person so this is all new to me. I bought this 2 year old spalding pair and would love to get black shoulder pieds from them but, I think I would really dilute them by breeding to blue. As for the record keeping and banding

Im not very good at organization but, I will give it a go! I was hoping there would be some pattern or feather color that would let me know the birds may be split to BS...




Here's the dark BS hen I was talking about. The flash from the camera kind of washed her out but, there is something definitely kicking with that pattern...

 

[connerhills]

The BS hen does have the Sieple pattern , which is the stripes in her breast area .. this can be a solid or broken stripe in the hens.. I have a idea how to see it in the male but I am still working on that . connerhills