I have read of some lines of Welsummer-colored chicks that can be sexed at hatch, and some that cannot. The obvious way to improve the trait is to try sexing them at hatch, mark the chicks or raise male/female in separate pens, and cull any chick that turns out the wrong gender. So you only breed from the ones that could be correctly sexed.
So what your saying is they could lay the same amount as a leghorn and go broody but you would have to check for eggs twice a day to make sure it doesn’t cause broodyness.
Not really.
Some hens will go broody even with an empty nest.
A broody hen does not lay while she is setting, and if you let her hatch eggs she will take at least a few weeks after the eggs hatch before she starts to lay again. If you break the broodiness (like by putting her in a wire cage with no nest for a few days), she will still take some amount of time before she starts laying eggs again.
If you have hens going broody, you WILL get less eggs than what Leghorns would produce. They might still be fairly good producers, but not Leghorn-level.
You might do better with one line that goes broody, and a different line that lays well. Then you can use the broodies to hatch eggs from both sets, while the layers keep laying.
Was thinking thinking about breeding for egg color, plumage color for Ameraucana
Then picking out the speckled egg layers and just breed hens to the Roos of the other and vise versa. Or focusing on breeding the speckled eggers together to get better speckles and focusing on traits of the Ameraucana group. Then breeding them together later on. Plus chipmunk pattern for Ameraucana, so I can try to select for differences as chicks like for welsummers.
I’d probably breed the silkie roo to the broody Orpington hens and game hens. Then choose the broody and best black skinned hens from both and then breed the best black skinned rooster from the game crossing to them.
Once I got those traits selected for in both lines. I’ll breed them together and select for traits from both and breed brother to sister. Then I’ll cross to leghorn to get a more blue or blueish green egg with large brown or bluish speckles and increased production
Yes, that plan could mostly work.
I’d probably breed the silkie roo to the broody Orpington hens and game hens. Then choose the broody and best black skinned hens from both and then breed the best black skinned rooster from the game crossing to them.
Unless the games have dark skin, you will not get a dark-skinned son from them. But you can have a son that carries the gene for dark skin, and can pass it to his chicks. Any son of a dark-skinned Silkie should have the right gene, even if he doesn't show it (because light skin is dominant.)
Reason: the gene for dark skin is on the Z sex chromosome. A hen gives it to her sons, and a rooster gives it to both his sons and his daughters. So the females only show what they got from their father (dark from Silkie father), but males show light skin if they got the light gene from either parent.
Once I got those traits selected for in both lines. I’ll breed them together and select for traits from both and breed brother to sister. Then I’ll cross to leghorn to get a more blue or blueish green egg with large brown or bluish speckles and increased production
Leghorns lay white eggs. The genes for "white" may cancel out the genes for "speckles."
If laying ability is the only trait you need from the Leghorn, you might consider some of the high-laying brown egg chickens (usually hybrids or some lines of Rhode Island Reds). Some of them lay as well as Leghorns, and they have the genes for brown eggs rather than white ones.
There is also feather color to consider. White Leghorns tend to lay better than other colors of Leghorns, but they have a bunch of feather-color genes you do not want in your project. Brown Leghorns probably have the feather colors you want, but generally don't lay as well as the White ones. Brown-laying hybrids have the wrong feather colors, but not as far wrong as the White Leghorns, and can lay as well as the White Leghorns.
