Naked Neck egg color project

[ATeacherChick]

Just for my own purposes (because I love the NN look) I am working on breeding chickens with the NN gene that reliable lay white, blue/green, and brown eggs. So obviously the brown is already their typical egg color but...
To get white and green/blue egg laying chickens that also carry the naked neck gene, how many times would I have to cross pairs between Easter Eggers and chickens with a dominant NN gene?
To get a white egg strain - same question with NN gene chickens and white egg layers.

I'm already working with second/third generation crosses of chickens displaying the NN gene (not "purebreds" from a hatchery, but chickens who have a parent or grandparent that wasn't a "Naked Neck"

 

[BlueBaby]

I've been starting to cross my NN gene with Crested Cream Legbars, and have some grow-outs that I am watching. Some of those are getting both the nn gene plus the crest on them.

I would imagine that to get the white eggs from them, you would have to take the lightest colored egg layer and breed back to a white egg layer?

 

[Sneebsey]

NN is incomplete dominant, therefore any offspring with an nn bird (a bird with a normal feathered neck) will be Nn, 'bowtie' naked necks. With that in mind, so long as you only retain the Nn/NN birds each generation, this project ought to be fairly easy to accomplish as you can keep breeding back and back to the parent breed with the egg-colour you desire.

When breeding for NN blue eggers, however, I would be inclined to begin by crossing the parent breeds a few times and beginning a mixed flock of the offspring, selecting yearly any birds which are blue egg layers and NN or Nn as your breeders; eventually, you will produce a group which are pure for both genes. Using this method, you will be able to select toward a bird which retains the good production characteristics from both parents, and the larger dual purpose size and type from the Naked Neck breed.

White eggs will be trickier. You will need to select your white egger parent breed and keep breeding back and back to that parent breed or another white egger breed. When breeding an Nn back to the feathered parent-breed, half the offspring will be Nn. The only concern would be that you are moving further and further away from the Naked Neck breed; a 7/8 Leghorn with NN is not going to possess the nice dual purpose type of the Naked Neck.

 

[ATeacherChick]

Thanks for this! I haven't purchased the white egg stock yet, I'll make sure to choose a heavier, more dual-purpose friendly white egg layer rather than the leghorn.

 

[CannedMonster]

I've been starting to cross my NN gene with Crested Cream Legbars, and have some grow-outs that I am watching. Some of those are getting both the nn gene plus the crest on them.

I would imagine that to get the white eggs from them, you would have to take the lightest colored egg layer and breed back to a white egg layer?

I’d love to see photos of that cross if you have some.
Very curious...

 

[BlueBaby]

I’d love to see photos of that cross if you have some.
Very curious...

I ended up with 2 good one's like that, but I need to take some current pic's of them. It took time for those crest's to start growing in good. They have the darker colored legs and the feathering is white with a few black scattered feathers in among the white. Both have the bibs because they were crossed with a full feathered neck parent (CCLB mother's). The daddy is the white NN/White Breese cross roo in my avatar. One of those chicks was hatched almost a month before the other one was.

 

[Cyprus]

I would save yourself some trouble and start by developing a strain that lays white eggs first and then using THAT strain to produce blue eggs, because if you use a brown layer to try to obtain blue eggs it will take you a very, very long time to breed out the brown gene that will tint the eggs green.

Here is what I would do:
Cross a black NN chicken, which is dual purpose, to a black Minorca chicken, which is also dual purpose and close in conformation.
Breed F1 offspring back into NN to get to fully dominant NN back. Select the lightest F2 layers and cross them back to a Minorca.
Keep the lightest F3 layers and breed them to F2 males. Keep the lightest laying F4 females with fully dominant NN and breed them back into Minorca to get the light egg color.
Your focus after that should be on getting red back into the earlobes and getting the NN gene fully back.

 

[Cyprus]

Sound's good towards greeting the bluer colored eggs. Most of my NN's are white, so where would I find any single combed white Minorca's at to try it?

You won't. If you want the white, go with Lamonas instead.

 

[BlueBaby]

You won't. If you want the white, go with Lamonas instead.

They sort of look similar to my white breese, but mine have the bluish leg color and lay a cream tinted egg. I already have those mixed into my white Nn's, and my roo is one of those.

 

[ShannonR]

I feel like for the white/cream eggs, y'all are trying to reinvent the wheel. My naked Ga noi hen layed cream eggs... just sayin'.