Inheriting egg colour?

[Animalian]

I have a ee that lays pink eggs, she was kept with a EE roo before I got her (yesterday). I was wondering that if the roo had the green egg gene and I hatch her eggs, that the chicks would lay green eggs when they grew up.

I have a memory that egg colour is inherited from the father. But my brain might have made that up LOL

 

[cmom]

To answer your question. Take a sex link chicken for an example, when you breed two different breeds the female chicks take on the genetics of the father and the male chicks will be more like the mother, so yes there is a good likelihood that if you hatch chicks from your EE roo that the pullets may lay blue or green eggs.

 

[Illia]

Egg color like everything is is dependent on BOTH parents.




A "pink" (light brown) egg x green egg = brownish green eggs or brown eggs.

A pink x blue egg = green eggs.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

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But Illia... we all want your PURPLE eggs!!!!!!

At least I do..

 

[FrenchToast]

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So by what your saying you won't get an olive egg by crossing a brown and green? How do you get an olive egg? Blue x brown ?

 

[DMRippy]

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So by what your saying you won't get an olive egg by crossing a brown and green? How do you get an olive egg? Blue x brown ?

You need a DARK brown layer like Marans to cross with the blue egg layer.

 

[Animalian]

I thought the "blue" gene was dominant over "white" so if they have A blue egg gene they will lay blue eggs. They don't need both to be 'blue egg'
I also read that
green eggs were really blue with a brown pigment
brown eggs are really white with a brown pigment etc.


I've bothered to re-read my genetics textbooks and if I have my Genetics right, with each parent having two sets of genetic information from their parents, and I know the were 1/4 D'uccle so:.....

B = Blue gene and w = white gene (from d'uccle)

Grandparents were
BB x ww
= Bw, Bw, Bw, Bw so all blue egg layers

These offspring crossed together
Bw x Bw
= BB, Bw, Bw, ww so 3/4 of the chicks will lay blue eggs.

So that would make my girl a ww because she lays 'white' so I will be hopeful and assume the roo she was with is Bw or BB

So my possibilities are

Bw x ww
= Bw, ww, Bw, ww so half the chicks would lay blue eggs

or if I was really lucky he was had BB, so

BB x ww
= Bw, Bw, Bw, Bw so ALL blue egg layers!!

So that means I have a pretty good chance of getting a blue egg laying bird out of her!

 

[Meara]

Each adult carries TWO alleles for egg color. If the female lays "pink" eggs then she is carrying at least one allele for brown (pink is a shade of brown). She is not carrying any alleles for blue because if she were her eggs would not be "pink", they would be green. It is possible therefore that she has two alleles for brown or one for brown and one for white.

The rooster is an unknown because he doesn't lay eggs

But let's assume he would be a green egg layer. That would mean he carries one allele for brown and one for blue.

Predicting egg colors for the offspring of this mating can be done with a classic Punnett square. The possible combinations are as follows:
brown, brown = brown or pink eggs 50%
brown, blue = green eggs 50%

OR( if she has one white allele)
brown, brown = brown or pink eggs 25%
brown blue = green eggs 25%
white, brown = brown or pink eggs 25%
white, blue = blue eggs 25%
There are two possible allele combinations in this scenario resulting in a brown/pink egg resulting in a total probability of 50% for that color.

My understanding is that the shade of color (how deep it is) is dependent on a number of modifiers. I've also heard that the allele for blue egg color is additive so that a hen with two alleles for blue will lay eggs that are more blue than if she only had one copy.

 

[FrenchToast]

Interesting, I am going to subscribe to this topic so I can refer to it. To tired now to try to absorb it.

Btw using the punnetts square what are the letters used for each egg color?

Thanks for the explanations !!

 

[Animalian]

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I'm pretty sure you can use anything you want really, generally recessive traits are represented in lower case letters.