Mix for color

[larryp]

I want to mix breeds and colors to produce multicolored off spring. I have roos and hens of these breeds. White leghorn, black austrolope, buff and lavender orpingtons, blue redlaced wyondotts. Which breed and color should I mix?

 

[Ridgerunner]

All the hens for sure. I’d suggest the Buff and Blue Red-laced roosters. Don’t use the other roosters.

You don’t know what is hiding under the white on that leghorn. You also don’t know what is causing that white, it could be dominant white on black or recessive white on anything. I’d certainly want the hens in the mix but I think there is too much of a chance of the rooster contributing black which can mask a lot.

Your Black Australorp and Lavender Orpington are based on black. That means if you use those roosters a lot of the chicks will be black. Let the hens contribute their genes to the gene pool because you want the black in there some but you don’t want it to dominate.

That Lavender is causing me some pain though. Lavender is a recessive gene, which means it has to pair up with another Lavender before you can see it. You can easily lose it in your flock. When it pairs up it modifies black to look Lavender. Definitely use your Lavender hens to get that gene in your flock. If you get lucky you could wind up in later generations with a red chicken walking around with a lavender tail instead of a black tail.

In your first generation you are not going to get a lot of color or pattern variety. Your BA and LO hens will have black chicks, though the buff can sometimes have some interesting effects on black. You could get some really pretty chickens from that. Even the chicks from the BO and BRLW will mostly look like each other, depending on which rooster is the father. Who knows what you will get form the Leghorn hen, probably white but maybe something else. You really don’t know what is hiding under that white.

But in the second generation you can get your rainbow flock. Save a rooster from your chicks, I’d suggest one that shows blue but do not choose a black, and mate him back to his half-sisters and sisters. If you keep a black rooster, while only half his genetics are black, black will dominate your flock. When you mix crosses of crosses the genetics are so messed up you can get all kinds of things. Keep some black pullets so you don’t totally lose black or any of the variety of genes they have hiding under their black.

 

[larryp]

Thanks for the information. I also have golden comet hens but no roo.