Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[NotableNancy]

[COLOR=006400]This sounds exactly right to me (I'm a human geneticist, so don't know the chicken traits well yet, but understand the general concepts pretty well). I somehow assumed that Meyer would just sell first generation hybrids (F1 generation, technically) and deliberately choose a blue-shell laying parent they knew was homozygous for the blue shell allele so they would pass it on to all of their offspring. That should be relatively straight forward for them to figure out, given the number of birds they have breeding. I would assume they would not then breed those F1 OE's at all, due to the problem Pipd points out - 25% of their offspring would lay brown eggs, 25% would lay blue eggs, and 50% would lay olive eggs. If they are doing that, they need to hire a new geneticist.

ETA: As I understand it, in order to guarantee olive eggs, they must breed a blue egg layer who carries two copies of the blue shell allele with a dark brown egg layer who carries two copies of the dark brown shell allele. All the offspring of this cross will, of necessity, have gotten a blue shell allele from one parent and a dark brown shell allele from the other parent, yielding olive eggs. Meyer says they have two breeding programs for OE's, involving legbar, marans and ameraucana. So that suggests one breeding program is legbar x marans, and the other is ameraucana x marans. Unless they are trying to do something more complicated...Anyway, they list only the cream legbar and the blue ameraucana on their site, but they have six varieties of marans (black copper, blue copper, blue splash, cuckoo, golden cuckoo and white) so if they are using a variety of marans in their OE breeding program it would not be surprising that the OE's have a great variety of appearances. I believe only the ameraucanas have the pea comb though, so a legbar x marans cross would yield a single comb offspring (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - as I said, I'm new to chickens)[/COLOR]

From the little genetics I remember from college the first paragraph sounds right to me and the 2nd seems pretty logical as well.

 

[chickadee5002]

I was about to say the same thing. What it is is that both of those genes, the one for pea combs and the one for blue shells, are dominant, meaning that if a bird has just one allele of either, they will show that trait. Obviously there are other factors for both, as is evidenced in many Easter-eggers who have funky combs from having a single combed parent in the mix or by the varying shades of blue one can get in their eggs. The point here is if you cross a pea combed and blue egg laying bird to a non-pea combed and non-blue egg laying bird, more than likely the offspring will still have pea combs and blue egg shells because of the dominance of the genes. I think that's where this misconception comes from.

As far as why some may not lay green eggs, instead laying brown eggs, well, if we assume that the birds we order are first generation Olive eggers, then that is a cross between blue shells and non-blue shells. In order for the daughters of this cross not to have blue shells, the blue shell bird must only be carrying one allele for the gene, and so only half of his or her offspring in this cross will inherit the proper gene. This is more likely in the case of a cross between a Marans and an Easter-egger, but less likely (not impossible, just less likely) in the case of an Ameraucana or Legbar cross.

If we assume the birds received are second generation Olive Eggers, getting brown eggs from the offspring of any cross becomes more likely. By this assumption, we are gathering that they are taking Olive Eggers directly from an Ameraucana, Legbar, or Easter-egger crossed to a Marans and then breeding them to other birds of similar lineage. Assuming the blue egger parent from the first crossing is carrying two blue egg alleles, then all of the daughters will lay olive eggs, but they will also have only inherited one allele for the gene, as will the sons of that crossing. As a result, if those daughters and sons are then paired up, about a quarter of their chicks will not inherit the blue egg gene.


Wow pip that's some good info! Thanks!

And if you can get through all that rambling, more power to you. I would post pictures of my Meyer babies, but half of them don't seem to want to load anyway. :/

 

[chickadee5002]

When I ordered I was mistakenly thinking we would all get first generation because that way it pretty much guaranteed you will get olive eggs. once you go 2nd generation no guarantee. I guess it's my fault for not asking on the phone?  But I think if people continue to get brown egg layers they either need to adjust the price or adjust the description. Or both.  Oh well, I hope mine is pretty/nice!

oh, that's so hard to watch. It sounds like you are doing everything you can.  I'm hoping it's temporary and she recovers fully.  

X2

Nancy your oe might not lay brown eggs like mine though so don't get upset because mine did. She just might be an oopsy girl! Lol

 

[chickadee5002]

Yep!  Marans feet and legs are lightly feathered so so would a Marans cross, if they have feathers at all.  Our BCM's feet aren't any dirtier than the other girls.

Common misconception that the pea comb and blue egg gene are linked, Buckeye and Brahma's are both brown egg layers with pea combs and Cream Legbars lay bluish eggs and have a straight comb

That is a bummer.  Personally I'm not a fan of the darker olive eggs, (I love sage and speckled green though) so if I got OE it would be more for their looks and your girls are gorgeous!  Don't wash off the bloom and you can pretend she's a "plum egger"

Thank you they are gorgeous to me! Lol "plum egger" that's great! I'll be telling everyone I have a new breed lol

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

[COLOR=006400] This sounds exactly right to me (I'm a human geneticist, so don't know the chicken traits well yet, but understand the general concepts pretty well). I somehow assumed that Meyer would just sell first generation hybrids (F1 generation, technically) and deliberately choose a blue-shell laying parent they knew was homozygous for the blue shell allele so they would pass it on to all of their offspring. That should be relatively straight forward for them to figure out, given the number of birds they have breeding. I would assume they would not then breed those F1 OE's at all, due to the problem Pipd points out - 25% of their offspring would lay brown eggs, 25% would lay blue eggs, and 50% would lay olive eggs. If they are doing that, they need to hire a new geneticist.

ETA: As I understand it, in order to guarantee olive eggs, they must breed a blue egg layer who carries two copies of the blue shell allele with a dark brown egg layer who carries two copies of the dark brown shell allele. All the offspring of this cross will, of necessity, have gotten a blue shell allele from one parent and a dark brown shell allele from the other parent, yielding olive eggs. Meyer says they have two breeding programs for OE's, involving legbar, marans and ameraucana. So that suggests one breeding program is legbar x marans, and the other is ameraucana x marans. Unless they are trying to do something more complicated...Anyway, they list only the cream legbar and the blue ameraucana on their site, but they have six varieties of marans (black copper, blue copper, blue splash, cuckoo, golden cuckoo and white) so if they are using a variety of marans in their OE breeding program it would not be surprising that the OE's have a great variety of appearances. I believe only the ameraucanas have the pea comb though, so a legbar x marans cross would yield a single comb offspring (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - as I said, I'm new to chickens)[/COLOR]

Ah, I didn't see that they don't use Easter-eggers in their breeding program for Olive Eggers. While it does happen, it's pretty rare to have an Ameraucana that is heterozygous for blue shells, from my understanding, and I would expect the same from Legbars but I don't know for sure on them. So either they are selling the F2s or chickadee was just very 'lucky' with her brown (plum?) egging Olive-egger!



As a side note, that isn't *quite* right on that spread for Olive egger to Olive egger crossing. I'm not absolutely clear on how the brown coating on the shell works, but it's more of a gradual dilution than an absolute dominant/recessive thing. Not quite partial dominance, either, because it's my understanding that it takes quite a few crossings to get from brown coating to no brown coating, and each successive cross away from brown coating will have paler and paler brown coatings. Blue shell and brown coating are separate from one another (blue is the actual shell, while brown is over top of it), and it's the combination of the two that makes green or olive eggs. So it's safe to assume from crossing F1 Olive Eggers, you would get 75% olive egg laying daughters and 25% brown egg laying daughters (plus the same distribution of sons that carry the genes, but obviously don't lay the eggs to show it) as your F2 generation. In more precise terms, it would be 25% homozygous blue shell brown coat egg layers, 50% heterozygous blue shell brown coat egg layers, and 25% homozygous white shell brown coat egg layers.

ETA: You are correct, though; Legbar based OEs should have single combs and Ameraucana based OEs should have pea combs. I won't go into the bearded/non-beared stuff for the Ams.

 

[EurekaChic]

Ah, I didn't see that they don't use Easter-eggers in their breeding program for Olive Eggers. While it does happen, it's pretty rare to have an Ameraucana that is heterozygous for blue shells, from my understanding, and I would expect the same from Legbars but I don't know for sure on them. So either they are selling the F2s or chickadee was just very 'lucky' with her brown (plum?) egging Olive-egger!



As a side note, that isn't *quite* right on that spread for Olive egger to Olive egger crossing. I'm not absolutely clear on how the brown coating on the shell works, but it's more of a gradual dilution than an absolute dominant/recessive thing. Not quite partial dominance, either, because it's my understanding that it takes quite a few crossings to get from brown coating to no brown coating, and each successive cross away from brown coating will have paler and paler brown coatings. Blue shell and brown coating are separate from one another (blue is the actual shell, while brown is over top of it), and it's the combination of the two that makes green or olive eggs. So it's safe to assume from crossing F1 Olive Eggers, you would get 75% olive egg laying daughters and 25% brown egg laying daughters (plus the same distribution of sons that carry the genes, but obviously don't lay the eggs to show it) as your F2 generation. In more precise terms, it would be 25% homozygous blue shell brown coat egg layers, 50% heterozygous blue shell brown coat egg layers, and 25% homozygous white shell brown coat egg layers.

ETA: You are correct, though; Legbar based OEs should have single combs and Ameraucana based OEs should have pea combs. I won't go into the bearded/non-beared stuff for the Ams.

[COLOR=006400] Thanks for the clarification! I really need to get around to reading a chicken genetics text book. [/COLOR]

 

[rnchick74]

I took some pics of my babies today...but apparently the mobile app won't let me upload!!!

 

[trsturself]

Here, maybe this will add some mud to the water...
Birds that are o+/o+ are programmed to produce a white egg shell but there are also other genes that can add brown pigment to the egg shell producing a brown egg. The other
allele located at the oocyan locus is the blue egg shell allele (O). The blue egg shell locus determines if a bird has the potential to produce a white egg shell or a blue egg shell. Birds that lay a blue egg are heterozygous oocyan 0O/o+ or are homozygous oocyan O/O and do not carry genes for brown shell color. Poultry that produce a blue egg shell must carry at least one dominant
blue egg shell or oocyan allele (O) (Bartlett et al. 1996). Other genes in the bird determine if a bird will produce a brown egg shell or a green egg shell.

 

[EurekaChic]

Here, maybe this will add some mud to the water...
Birds that are o+/o+ are programmed to produce a white egg shell but there are also other genes that can add brown pigment to the egg shell producing a brown egg. The other allele located at the oocyan locus is the blue egg shell allele (O). The blue egg shell locus determines if a bird has the potential to produce a white egg shell or a blue egg shell. Birds that lay a blue egg are heterozygous oocyan 0O/o+ or are homozygous oocyan O/O and do not carry genes for brown shell color. Poultry that produce a blue egg shell must carry at least one dominant blue egg shell or oocyan allele (O) (Bartlett et al. 1996). Other genes in the bird determine if a bird will produce a brown egg shell or a green egg shell. 

[COLOR=006400] Ah, that clarifies things, and means breeding an OE is more complicated than we thought. But still not THAT complicated that Meyer should have trouble with it. Assuming they know their own birds. [/COLOR]

 

[mimischicksnat]

I am saddened by all of this, but also realize that these things happen with chickens.

I hope she's doing better today. You can only do what you can do. I hold my breath every time I go in to the coop or down to the brooder hoping I don't have to deal with a catastrophe, although I know my time will come.

Good luck with her!