How would you breed a barred bearded chicken?

[Northwest_Wannabe]

Having a little barred Easter Egger or any kind of bearded little lady has always been my dream, so I'm curious, what would YOU cross to make a barred bearded chicken?

I think Easter Egger would be the easiest to aquire for one of the parents (to provide some beardy) but what would you cross it with? Male or female? In my area we have Wyandotte, Cochin, and Plymouths who have nice barring. But on the other hand, so many Easter Eggers are Not like one color, (ex. Blue) so would the muddled crazy genetics an EE could be hiding mess up the cross and throw crazy colors instead of barring? :0

Am I over thinking this? Has anyone gotten a barred EE from a feedstore? Lol!

 

[Gryphon]

Apparently there's a few choices to get Olive Eggers: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/easter-eggers-barred-black-olive-eggers.47247/
If you wanted to be sure to get the blue gene, choose a EE rooster that carries two copies of the blue gene. If you want blue eggs instead of green, choose a white egg laying hen. As for barring, you would want either the hen it too to carry two copies of the barring gene to make sure all chicks end up barred.

 

[NatJ]

Easter Egger hen (beard). Either all black, or brown-and-black patterns, or white-and-black patterns. Any of those with blue instead of the black will also work. But not all white, and not brown-and-white patterns.

Barred Rooster (Plymouth Rock or other barred breed.)

You should get 100% barred chicks, either half or all with beards.
If the hen has black in her coloring, the chicks will be black-with-barring.
If the hen has blue in her coloring, half the chicks will be blue-with-barring, while the other half will be black-with-barring.


If you want the genetic reasons:

Barring is sexlinked and dominant. A rooster can pass it to his sons and his daughters, while a hen can pass it only to her sons. So you want a barred father.

Beard is dominant but NOT sexlinked. So either parent can pass it to the chicks. You can tell if your Easter Egger hen has the beard, but you can't tell by looking whether she has one or two copies of the gene. So either half of her chicks will have beards, or all of her chicks will have beards.

Extended Black is the gene you need for the black background. It's dominant, so when the rooster passes it to all his chicks, they will all look black (with white barring.)

There is one gene that turns black to white. It's called Dominant White. You don't want the hen to have that--because white barring on a white chick just doesn't look the same! If the hen has black in her coloring, she does NOT have the Dominant White gene. If the hen has blue in her coloring, she also does NOT have Dominant White.

The blue gene turns black to blue. If the hen's got blue in her feathers, then half her chicks will also have blue instead of black in their feathers. Blue is incompletely dominant--one copy makes blue, two copies make splash. But if the rooster is black with barring, then he doesn't have blue, so the chicks cannot get the blue gene from him. Therefore no splash chicks.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

Egg color doesn't really matter for me, thank you for the genetic explainaton NatJ!!

 

[LMat]

I have a pure, bearded silkie rooster and ALL of his offspring to my non-bearded hens have been bearded (avatar is Dahlia, one of my silkie x cochin crosses). Silkie feathering is recessive, so you'd get normal feathers if crossed to a non silkie (but will get a bunch of other notable silkie features, like the black skin, feathered feet and noggin feathering). If you had a barred and bearded silkie rooster, crossed to, say, a barred rock, you'd get barred, bearded birds with non-silkie feathers.

 

[LMat]

Here's a better picture.
I get consistent beards, feathered feet and crests when breeding bearded silkie to non-silkie.

 

[LikeTurkeys]

Is this what you're thinking of? These are my DOM x EE crosses, cockerel and pullet. The pullet is older now and lays light brown eggs.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

Yes :'O gorgeous! Also I hadn't thought of silkie... Hmm that's a good point :0 not sure I've seen a cuckoo/barred silkie in person but that would be an awesome addition to my flock! thank you all!