Prairie Bluebell Breeding produces what color egg layer?

[TayInTX]

I’ve been wanting some prairie bluebells and wanting the ability to produce blue egg layers myself. I asked Hoover hatchery if crossing a prairie bluebell rooster and a prairie bluebell hen would result in offspring that lays blue eggs. They replied that they do not breed true. (This is obvious - look at the color variation) but they did not answer my specific question about what color egg the offspring would likely lay.

By my (poor) genetic calculations, this cross should produce some hens who lay a blue egg and some who *might* lay white. Has anyone done this breeding? Any geneticists already know the outcome from this type of cross?

If Hoover’s is selling Starlight hens, which come from a Prairie Bluebell/Brown layer cross and mostly produce a green egg laying offspring, that tells me the blue gene should be readily passed on.
Thus a PBxPB should produce some blue egg layers.

Thank you everyone for any help you can give!

 

[Ridgerunner]

The Prairie Bluebell is a marketing name for Hoover's leghorn/araucana cross. So it is a hybrid.

The hens and roosters each have one blue egg shell gene and one not-blue shell gene. The not-blue gene default color is white because of other genetics. The blue egg shell gene is dominant so the hens will lay a blue egg.

Since the egg shell color genes are randomly passed down from both mother and father, about 1/4 of the pullet offspring of a PB rooster over PB hen will lay white eggs. About 3/4 of the pullets will lay blue eggs. The male offspring will not lay eggs so you don't know what genetics they inherited.

The Araucana tuft gene is potentially fatal gene. It is dominant so if the Araucana has one tuft gene it will have tufts. If it has two copies of the tuft gene the chick will die before hatching. If it does not have any tuft genes then it will not have any effect. So some of your PB should have tufts, some probably do not. If you cross two PB with tufts about 1/4 will die before hatch, about half will have tufts, ad about 1/4 will not have tufts.

If you cross a PB that has tufts with a PB that does not have tufts none will die from that fatal gene, about half should have tufts, and about 1/2 will not.

Hopefully that is clear. If not, let me know.

 

[Mrs. K]

^^ well done

 

[TayInTX]

That was a phenomenal answer and was exactly what I was hoping to learn! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I didn’t know the tuft gene was fatal - I’m grateful you shared that. Thank you!

 

[albe032003]

Is it rare that a prairie bluebell lays white eggs?

 

[lomine]

All of this would depend on if the PBs are first generation crosses or if the Araucana and Leghorns are just the foundation breeds for the PBs. Based on the pictures posted on Hoovers for them and a quick google search (I know, I know, that's not very reliable), I'm thinking they are not first gen crosses. This is because I don't see any tuffs. Granted there are only a few on the hatchery site, I would think at least some would have tuffs.

I think they would all have to be white as well since that's a dominate color so all White Leghorn offspring should be white.

I'm also pretty sure Araucana's should be rumpless (no tails), but I don't know what that would do when crossed with tailed breeds.

I'm thinking there are several generations of selective breeding in their breeder flock. If Hoover is saying all pullets with lay blue eggs, then I believe that should mean that all of them carry two blue genes. Otherwise, there's a chance their breeder flock could create white layers.

Of course, this is all pure speculations on my part. Only one real way to test it out and that's to hatch eggs and wait for the girls to lay.

 

[Javier Alejandro]

hI, Hoover says that the colour of his chicks eggs are blue but the real thing is that the colour of those eggs are ligth paleblue / skyblue . Thats because the cross. If the eggs that you obtain are real blue, i mean real solid blue...Man! so you got an araucana chick!

 

[NancyH]

I’ve been wanting some prairie bluebells and wanting the ability to produce blue egg layers myself. I asked Hoover hatchery if crossing a prairie bluebell rooster and a prairie bluebell hen would result in offspring that lays blue eggs. They replied that they do not breed true. (This is obvious - look at the color variation) but they did not answer my specific question about what color egg the offspring would likely lay.

By my (poor) genetic calculations, this cross should produce some hens who lay a blue egg and some who *might* lay white. Has anyone done this breeding? Any geneticists already know the outcome from this type of cross?

If Hoover’s is selling Starlight hens, which come from a Prairie Bluebell/Brown layer cross and mostly produce a green egg laying offspring, that tells me the blue gene should be readily passed on.
Thus a PBxPB should produce some blue egg layers.

Thank you everyone for any help you can give!

Last year I hatched eggs from a White Leghorn hen crossed with a prairie Blue Bell rooster. The resulting chickens are white with a few dark specs on them. They have just started laying a light blue egg.