OPAL OR BLUE Old English Game Bantams????

[keeponcluckin]

Hey there! Was wondering if someone could help me figure out the colors of my Old English Game Bantams. I got these from a fellow that bought an incubator from another fellow with the eggs in there. The incubator fellow said they were blues. My question is about the roo and blue hen. I have Blue, Black and splash Orpingtons and Lavender Orps but have never seen such a color as this adorable Roo. Also the hen looks more self blue according to pics I've seen of OEG's. Although she looks like my blue orp hens but she also looks like my lavenders a little. No lacing and not as dark as pics of blue OEG'S. But I don't know why there is a splash in the bunch and the ROO???? Please help if someone has time.

I want to sell eggs but would like to know more first. I know one thing...THEY ARE TOO STINKIN' CUTE!!

 

[Pele]

OEG genetics get really complicated really quickly. I'm no expert, but I think your first two birds would qualify as Kahki or Dun.

The last bird is a splash. If you got them all from the same place, I would assume that the breeder is developing a Platinum or Pewter line, and gave you the birds that didn't support that direction of breeding.

 

[OSUman]

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[ksacres]

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X2

The first two do look kind of opal progress to me. It's a very new color and you are lucky to have gotten your hands on them.

My opinion, hatch a bunch yourself and see what you get before you start selling. You have to know what you have and how they breed before you can/should market them to others. If they don't breed true, then likely they are not the same color variation/mutation and you don't want to be selling eggs or you will have angry customers. If they do breed true then you are pretty much good to go.

Don't use the splash though, just the two opal looking birds, you don't want Andalusian blue throwing a kink in the works and masking colors or you might end up with a mess that will take several generations and lots of "discard" birds still carrying the Andalusian blue. From my understanding, the opal color is a variant of self blue/lav, and is a recessive. So you could use good typed black oeg to expand your breeding pool, but those chicks would need to be bred back to the original opal color before you will see any color again. This is how the good typed Lav Orps and whatnot were created, and also how the Lav AM's were developed. Just make sure you stick to good typed birds and you will have a solid genetic pool to work with in no time.

 

[hdowden]

the roo i have no clue about but i would love to have one like him...the 1st hen looks to be self blue, and the last is a splash

 

[suzeqf]

I have a silver blue OEGB hen that I've been trying to figure out what her official color is. She's quite a bit lighter than the girl in the 2nd pic. All I have on my computer at work is a pic of her at 4 weeks and she's a lot lighter than that as an adult. I would say your girl in the 2nd pic is blue she is the same color as my blue ameracana girl

 

[keeponcluckin]

Thanks for everyone's input. More and more the self blue looking hen looks brownish. Here is some pics of the opal and lav, blue, chocolate whatever she is chicks. They all look black. Wonder what that means......The splash is not laying so all chicks are from the opal and blue colored hen. CHEERS!

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[OSUman]

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Makes me think that the top right hen is Dun based Chocolate and the rooster is Opal

 

[KandiandJerry]

To me the first hen does look like a self blue I raise self blues and yours does kinda favor one of mine. the second hen for sure looks like a splash to me............

 

[KandiandJerry]

now that I looked at the pic a little closer she does appear to have a little brown tint to her if so not a self blue hen...