No I haven't made the other cross. I just made more sense to go the other way. One Grey cock can cover many hens, but one grey hen can only be bred to one male at a time. I have enough interesting genes to work with for a while so I probably will not ever make the reciprocal cross.
As far as fertility goes, there have not been any problems. The problem in the F1 generation was that so few even lived to adulthood. Most of the hybrids I have all go back to only one F1 rooster, the one pictured. Some of the hens I bred him to had a small amount of Grey in them from a previous cross, which was also from grey male over phoenix female. The F2 birds are healthy and robust, and do not have any problems living to adulthood. But for some reason the F1s didn't want to live.
The main thing I had in mind when breeding to them, was to pick up the long narrow pointed chest feathers from the grey. I also got some comb modifiers and some extra marking on the hens, and a little of the grey's color modifiers. And they act funny like a grey. Some are flighty and wild, some are more tame, but still have short grey-like crows and a strange cackle. Most have some bright color in the chest, no matter what e-locus they are on.
As far as fertility goes, there have not been any problems. The problem in the F1 generation was that so few even lived to adulthood. Most of the hybrids I have all go back to only one F1 rooster, the one pictured. Some of the hens I bred him to had a small amount of Grey in them from a previous cross, which was also from grey male over phoenix female. The F2 birds are healthy and robust, and do not have any problems living to adulthood. But for some reason the F1s didn't want to live.
The main thing I had in mind when breeding to them, was to pick up the long narrow pointed chest feathers from the grey. I also got some comb modifiers and some extra marking on the hens, and a little of the grey's color modifiers. And they act funny like a grey. Some are flighty and wild, some are more tame, but still have short grey-like crows and a strange cackle. Most have some bright color in the chest, no matter what e-locus they are on.
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