Legbar-Marans cross Olive eggers & barring gene.

[southernhusky]

so I crossed my blue marans too x couple cream legbar hens. Hatched these f1 auto sexing eggs & kept some pullets, most looked more like legbars with copper streakage. Now I’ve got a few of them laying, crossed them back to pure blue & splash marans Roos for darker layers. I’ve hatched a few of these f2 chicks(5 recently). Noticed some are hatching with head spots & some are not. Since only barring gene would have come from the hen, are these chicks with a headspot likely males?

 

[southernhusky]

Pictures

 

[The Moonshiner]

You shouldn't be getting any barred chicks and there should be no sex link to them either.
Your first cross produced sex links because of the hens barring. The cockerels got barring from their moms but the pullets didn't. Those pullets that you're hatching from now do not have the barred gene nor do the marans you're crossing them with.
These chicks you'll just have to wait it out to sex.
Also your pullets you're hatching from now only received one gene for blue eggs so some of your new chicks will not inherent the blue egg gene and will end up laying brown eggs instead of olive eggs.

 

[southernhusky]

Hmm ok. The head spots are throwing me off, I wouldn’t expect to see any. What would you suggest crossing to try to keep the blue egg gene present while trying to darken the egg color? Wouldn’t f1 to f1 OE still give chance of regular brown layers? I was going by a chart I had found that showed the shades you should get breeding f1s to each other or back to brown or blue layer. I’m good with genetics but I’m not familiar enough with the blue egg gene to know how that works, heh guess I just assumed bc of chart once I got it in there it would stay, heh. Sorry! Still learning! Ty for reply!

 

[southernhusky]

Any suggestion? The headspot in these f2 chicks should indicate barring gene though yes? Explanation?

You shouldn't be getting any barred chicks and there should be no sex link to them either.
Your first cross produced sex links because of the hens barring. The cockerels got barring from their moms but the pullets didn't. Those pullets that you're hatching from now do not have the barred gene nor do the marans you're crossing them with.
These chicks you'll just have to wait it out to sex.
Also your pullets you're hatching from now only received one gene for blue eggs so some of your new chicks will not inherent the blue egg gene and will end up laying brown eggs instead of olive eggs.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I see what you're seeing and what you're saying but don't get it.
If a bird has the barring gene it shows. It isn't recessive and can't hide. (Well in some cases it can such as with a white bird etc but not in your case.)
Your f1 pullets shouldn't be barred. And weren't correct?
So if they aren't barred and the roosters you bred them to aren't barred then the chicks wouldn't be able to be barred.
Your original rooster was a blue marans? Solid blue not blue copper?
I would of expected the f1 pullets to be black or blue with maybe some leakage.
The marans extended black should of covered the legbars wild type pattern.
Your f1s should be extended black/wild type so when bred back to a blue or splash marans these chicks would be extended black/extended black or extended black/wild type. Again they should be pretty much solid colored chicks and some would get leakage.
The light chick is also confusing. Is it splash? You should only be getting blacks and blues unless one of your hens was blue which I didn't see mentioned.
Ask @junebuggena she is good with genetics. Maybe I'm missing something.

As for breeding for the blue gene and darker eggs its a catch 22. When you breed to the blue egg gene you're getting away from the dark egg genes. When you breed for the dark genes you're getting away from the blue gene.
Someone on here has some real knowledge of breeding for olive eggers. I believe it is @Lady of McCamley maybe.
Hopefully one of them will pop in and help out.

 

[junebuggena]

Would need to see pictures of all the parent birds in order to figure out what exactly is going on. Blue/Splash Marans to the sexlinked Legbar crosses should not produce any barring at all.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I too am surprised you got any barred at all if the eggs you set were from CL hen/Blue Marans roo crosses, which should have been not barred, and likely grey/blue or black (although I did get a very nice blue wild type...a rooster so I didn't keep him....from f1 grey bred back to barnevelder dad).

I'm not sure where that barring came from unless you potentially are working with siblings bred together, not the original parents line bred back. I agree with Junebugenna, show pics of parents.

To keep the blue shell gene active and alive, you need to very carefully follow the blue shell genetics thread in your breeding.

The quickest method to keep blue from fading out is to keep a pure blue layer parent and line breed back to that parent. The next is to carefully breed KNOWN blue hybrid to blue hybrid sibling of various generations.

What color were the F2 eggs you set...both on the outside of the shell and the inside of the shell?

To deepen olive, only set blue shell eggs...that should be green eggs with a healthy color of olive, which shows some darker brown wash, and a clear blue genetics by the shell color itself (from the inside of the egg).

You will get again the 50/50 chance of the blue shell gene being passed to the next generation if that hen is bred to your Blue/Splash Marans rooster, and I find about a 30 to 50% chance of the brown wash deepening....I definitely get ranges. Keep setting the best colors as generations advance. Some feel the best olive does come from blue layer hen bred to darker layer rooster....but you can lose that blue gene if you don't carefully follow it.

That is a little trickier with f1 or f2 siblings (preferably f1 to f3), which can actually set your line. You have to test breed the hybrid roosters to be sure they have a blue gene. Then you can recapture blue genes by breeding hybrid to hybrid (1 blue gene each)....25% double blue, 50% single blue, 25% no blue. Keep taking the darkest blues, which generally indicate both blue genes present, to breed back to the known blue hybrid rooster. You should then end up with 100% (almost) double blue in that progeny...mark that line very carefully.

You can see ideally it is best to keep a purebred blue in either rooster or hen to keep regenerating the project for color manipulation...but with careful line following you can recreate a blue line.

Here are some results from my breeding between Splash Marans (hen) and Barnevelder (rooster with good dark genes) and Isbar-Maran olive egger (hen)....as well as some other flock members as test subjects.

My original projects did produce f1 blue birds that layed (mostly) darker, f1 black birds that lay olive, and I'm recapturing the barnevelder lacing following the RSL line breeding back to dad producing generally rich peach or terra cotta eggs.

Good luck with your olive egger project
LofMc