Need some help determining Ameraucana breeding colors?

[zestokasis]

Alright, I'm new to this and I'm pretty sure that there is a chart posted somewhere but I can't find it, or can't understand it. So if someone could be so kind and basically tell me in layman's terms what color you get from crossing purebred Ameraucanas of one color with a pure bred Ameraucanas of another color I would really appreciate it and forever be in your debt.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If I remember right, there are 8 different recognized colors and patterns of Ameraucanans. What you would get would depend on which of these 8 colors you are talking about. If I did the math right, you are talking about 28 different possible combinations. And with several of those, it makes a difference which is the father and which is the mother so there would be more than 28 answers.

Some of those crosses I could probably handle but I'm not up on Ameraucana genetics enough to answer all of them for sure. If you had some specific colors in mind I might give it a try.

Here is an interesting toy, a cross calculator. I'll warn you, it can become addictive. There is a learning curve. To me the hard thing is figuring out what the genetics are to start with, but you might enjoy playing with it. This is the closest thing to a chart I'm aware of.

Cross Calculator
http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#kipcalculator

In the first generation, when you are crossing purebred birds, the results are very predictable as long as you know the starting point. But one of the facinating things to me is when you cross the offspring of crosses, especially when the original parents have several basic differences. There are a lot of different genes that can have different effects depending on what other genes are present. Crossing crosses shows how many of those potentian effects there are.

 

[zestokasis]

Thanks for the help Ridgerunner, I'll give the calculator a try and see what I come up with.

 

[pips&peeps]

You can cross blues and blacks together to get blue, black and splash. You can breed wheaten and blue wheatens together to get wheaten, blue wheaten and splash wheaten offspring.

Crossing all other varieties will give you easter eggers as they will not breed true the next generation and therefore are not considered ameraucanas anymore.

 

[zestokasis]

I have a Blue Wheaten cock and a Blue hen?

 

[Ridgerunner]

You probably picked one of the of the more complicated to explain. Realize I'm doing some guessing here. I think both have one copy of the Andalusian blue gene to get the blue color. The Blue Wheaton Cock should be based on Wheaton and should have the Gold gene. The hen should be based on Extended Black and have the Silver gene. If I'm guessing wrong on these genetics I'm off base.

The blue gene is what makes it complicated. It's one of those that depends on what else is there plus it depends on how many copies of the blue gene are there. I'm assuming you understand that genes come in pairs. With the blue gene, if you get two copies of the blue gene, you get something called splash. If you get one copy of the blue gene, it shows as blue. If you have no copies, it shows as black.

Since both your cock and hen have one copy of the blue gene, they will randomly give a blue gene or a not-blue gene to their offspring. So you will get some offspring with two copies of blue so they will be splash, you will get some that have just one copy and will be blue, and you will get some with no copies of blue so they will be black.

They will all have one copy of Extended Black and one copy of Wheaton. Extended Black is dominant over Wheaton. So they will be unicolor splash, unicolor blue, or unicolor black. If you hatch enough so that odds mean anything, 1/4 will be Splash, 1/2 will be Blue, and 1/4 will be black.

 

[cubakid]

Should be a blue black or splash with gold in the hackles of males and females as well as male saddle and shoulder.

 

[pips&peeps]

as I said before if you cross anything but the colors I mentioned, you get easter eggers

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Blue may or may not be extended black based.

 

[zestokasis]

Thanks guy's for all the information, I never would have thought that you could breed two ameraucanas together of different colors and not get an ameraucanas. I can see that I have a lot of reading to do on this subject. I'm gonna have to find a "Chicken Genetics for Dummies" book. lol