If you’ve ever wondered what a Splash Ameraucana rooster mixed w/ a Black Tailed Wheaten Maran hen produces, you might be very surprised..

[BantamJunkie]

1st, I’ll start off w/ a photo of both, the Splash Ameraucana rooster & the Black-tailed Wheaten Maran hen. Both were born on the same day, April 1st of ‘24. They are both 1 year old in just a few short days.
To date, the hen has laid a whopping 158 eggs. Keep in mind, she’s only been laying over the past 6 months..
The rooster tends to 12 hens in total & we have randomly incubated other hen’s eggs, not BTWMs, & the fertilization % has been very high.
With that said, here we go.

 

[BantamJunkie]

This is where it gets interesting.
You would completely expect the Splash over a Wheaten would be a dominate trait passed down & you would be absolutely correct.
But something(s) else happens that is completely unexpected, & it happens @ a rate of 33%, consistently, of all chicks from those exact 2 previously pic’d ‘parents’.
We’ll start w/ the ‘expected’ splash dominance cockerels & pullets.

Check out the different legs. Some are green, some are yellowish pink. Some are feathered (booted) & some are clean as a whistle.
These variations are consistent w/ the Splash ‘dominant’ trait chicks & they too make up 33% of the chicks said ‘parents’.

Moving on, let’s take a look @ the 2nd, varying traits cockerels & pullets, which make up the remaining 33% of these siblings.

…We’ll get to the ‘unexpected’ 33% after these next beautiful birds.

 

[Amer]

Your rooster is not a Splash Ameraucana.
He is a silver columbian Easter Egger. That's why you are getting so much variation.

 

[Amer]

This is a splash Ameraucana

For comparison, a silver columbian Plymouth Rock

 

[The Moonshiner]

Your rooster is not a Splash Ameraucana.
He is a silver columbian Easter Egger. That's why you are getting so much variation.

Where's the yellow shanks coming from.
I get the EE carries yellow skin gene but a Marans hen shouldn't and her white skin gene should be dominant so no yellow shanks.

 

[Amer]

Where's the yellow shanks coming from.
I get the EE carries yellow skin gene but a Marans hen shouldn't and her white skin gene should be dominant so no yellow shanks.

There's also the non-feathered legs to account for.
Either the Marans is carrying the yellow skin gene and non feathered shanks (possible, I had a d'Anvers which carried yellow skin.)
Or, and I think this is more likely: there is another hen in this equation. Someone elses eggs are being mistaken for the wheaten Marsns.

 

[BantamJunkie]

On my honor, these are the siblings to the previous Splash dominate cockerels/pullets & again, ALL from the same 2 birds originally pic’d.
These are some very beautiful, hearty birds! Some look straight up’Hawkish’ but that’s just mostly the Ameraucana

This is a splash Ameraucana View attachment 4065727
For comparison, a silver columbian Plymouth Rock View attachment 4065728

yeah, that looks nothing like my Splashed Ameraucana..this is a Splash Ameraucana as well.
Silver Colombian Easter Eggers don’t have the muffs that my Ameraucana rooster has.
Here is another Splash Ameraucana from Murray McMurray Hatchery, where we got Raven, our Splash Ameraucana, from for reference.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Splash is two copies of the blue dilution gene, splash birds cannot have black feathers because the gene diluted the all of black pigment. Your rooster may have been sold to you as a splash, but he is not. He is silver (the white feathers) Columbian (the black restricted to the tail and neck).

The other "splash ameraucana" from. Murray McMurray also does not have the blue dilution gene and is not splash, nor do they make any claims that he is splash. You can call them splash if you like, but the genetics are silver with the columbian pattern and will not act anything like the blue dilution gene that creates splash.

 

[JedJackson]

On my honor, these are the siblings to the previous Splash dominate cockerels/pullets & again, ALL from the same 2 birds originally pic’d.
These are some very beautiful, hearty birds! Some look straight up’Hawkish’ but that’s just mostly the Ameraucana

yeah, that looks nothing like my Splashed Ameraucana..this is a Splash Ameraucana as well.
Silver Colombian Easter Eggers don’t have the muffs that my Ameraucana rooster has.
Here is another Splash Ameraucana from Murray McMurray Hatchery, where we got Raven, our Splash Ameraucana, from for reference.
View attachment 4065779View attachment 4065780

That rooster is Colombian, too, not splash. Splash is black with two dilution genes, and it produces an irregular pattern of blue splashes over a very pale blue ground color. Blue is black with one dilution gene.

Colombian is a totally separate pattern. McMurray may call that a splash Ameraucana, but it is in fact an Easter egger with the Colombian pattern. True Ameraucanas do not come in Colombian.

 

[JedJackson]

Splash is two copies of the blue dilution gene, splash birds cannot have black feathers because the gene diluted the all of black pigment. Your rooster may have been sold to you as a splash, but he is not. He is silver (the white feathers) Columbian (the black restricted to the tail and neck).

The other "splash ameraucana" from. Murray McMurray also does not have the blue dilution gene and is not splash. You can call them splash if you like, but the genetics are silver with the columbian pattern and will not act anything like the blue dilution gene that creates splash.

Geez, it's like I was reading your mind lol. I swear I didn't read your post but wrote pretty much exactly the same thing you did. Weird!