Need to order more hatching eggs….

[talkinboutchickens]

Only thing with them is they don't tend to be a long lived breed and are more prone to reproductive issues

Very true unfortunately.

 

[PaigeWells]

I actually have them on my list!!! I was thinking the same thing. I would love a few more olive eggs in my basket. My roo is a CCl cross, technically as the obvious CCL cockerels did not make it out of the brooder due to overcrowding and stalling on my part. His daddy was purebred CCL (since passed away) but his mom could have been one of the olive eggers, a brown heavy bloomer or an easter egger. i was not able to keep track of which chickens hatched out of which eggs throughout their entire growth. But if i understand genetics of egg color, because his daddy was a blue egg carrier, he should be too, correct?

I was hoping someone more experienced than me would give this one a go, but I’ll try. OK. A CCL SHOULD be but isn’t always Homozygous for the blue egg gene. (Homozygous means they carry 2 copies of the Blue egg gene, Heterozygous means they carry one). Blue is dominant, and will give a blue color to the egg, but double blue is better. So a CCL hen with one blue gene (heterozygous) will have pale blue eggs. A CCL hen with 2 blue egg genes (homozygous) will have a bluer egg usually. Then when it comes to passing things on to their babies, the mom gives one of her 2 genes for egg color to her babies, and so does the dad. This means, for you, that if your original dad CCL had 2 blues, he would have given a blue for sure to his child, and no matter what the mom gave, the blue from dad would be dominant, so the child’s egg would be affected by blue genes- depending on what that child got from his mom, child’s egg might be a blue, or any shade of green. So- your roo, (the child) would have at least one blue gene.

BUT if your orriginal CCL Roo had only one Blue gene and one white gene then he might have passed on the blue, great, but he instead might have passed on the white gene to your rooster, thus no shades of green or blue are ever coming out of that boy- unless he got blue from his mom… (All eggs are either blue or white genes, that’s why a green egg is blue on the inside, and a brown egg is usually white on the inside. The brown is a “final spray coat” on the outside, and it comes from 13 different gene combos and is really hard to track- if a hen has the blue gene and a brown, she will make a blue egg and then spray paint it with a layer of brown; a heavy brown results in olive, a light in mint, and speckles, well, in speckled eggs.)

We can have a lot of fun with Punnet squares based on what we are guessing your roo is, but I have a suggestion- if you really want to know, there is a lady that does simple (well actually probably not) DNA tests on chickens. She can check for the blue egg gene, and will tell you if your roo has one copy of the blue or 2 or none. She also can check for sex, and for the white gene. (She can test baby chicks via a blood sample from clipping a toenail; babies from their own eggshell, or adults from a few feathers.) Her cost is I believe $15 per test, and to do it she needs 2 feathers plucked from your guy and popped immediately into a clean ziplock bag. I recently had her test 6 of my birds, she emails results to you within 24 hours of receiving your feathers. Her website is FreshlyPickedChicks. You order online, she sends you instructions via email, you send in the feathers (she has a link to a video of how to pluck them- it was pretty simple, I did it at night when I could grab everyone). If you choose to test him, you will know what you are dealing with.

I did some quick math, (which I could very well have screwed up…). FYI the blue gene is a big 0, and white is a little o. So a homozygous blue (2 blue) is 00; a homozygous white is oo; and an Olive egger got a blue 0 from one parent and a white o from the other, plus the brown tint making it a shade of green, so they are 0o.

If your current roo’s dad was homozygous 00, and his mom was either a brown layer oo or an olive layer 0o, then he has a 1/4 chance of having double blue genes 00 (and thus passing on a blue for sure, as both his genes would be blue); and a 3/4 chance of having some shade of green 0o, which means 3/4 of the time he would pass on a 50% chance of the baby getting a blue gene and a 50% chance of it getting a white gene, with some amount of tint thrown in to determine the shade of brown added over the white or blue. I’m not going near the possibilities if his mom was an Easter Egger. Good luck with that!

If your roo’s dad was only Heterozygous 0o, and the mom was a brown or olive, then it comes out a 1/8 chance he is Homozygous himself 00; a 50% chance he is heterozygous 0o and could pass on EITHER a blue gene or white gene (with some tint) even chances on blue vs white; and a 3/8 chance of being oo and thus only having a white gene (with some possible brown tint) to pass on.

AND remember, the above is only what HE brings to the table, you have to also add in what the hen contributes! Basically, you MIGHT get green eggs, but there’s a lot of chance of getting tan or brown…. Hope this helps.

 

[bravecoconut]

I've only ever purchased chicks or pullets, and for full disclosure, I live close enough to them that I pick them up in person, so I have never gotten anything shipped from them. But I do know they have good word of mouth on shipping and they are a really nice family that runs the place.

I ended up ordering eggs for pick up. I'd rather have a day of driving by myself, listening to Audible, than risk the shipping. Sounds like a vacation to me! Thanks for helping me push that button.

 

[Anon112]

I ended up ordering eggs for pick up. I'd rather have a day of driving by myself, listening to Audible, than risk the shipping. Sounds like a vacation to me! Thanks for helping me push that button.

I don't know if you're at all into hiking, but they are very close to Cunningham Falls State Park and Catoctin Mountain State Park. At the very least they are beautiful to drive through if you're coming from South or West of where they are.

 

[bravecoconut]

I don't know if you're at all into hiking, but they are very close to Cunningham Falls State Park and Catoctin Mountain State Park. At the very least they are beautiful to drive through if you're coming from South or West of where they are.

That's sounds awesome! If I can squeeze in the time I will definitely check it out. I have a toddler at home so I don't know if guilt will set in at being away for so long. This will be the longest I've ever been away from him now that I think about and he turns three in May. Wow....