Question about breeding and egg color.

[Jayon]

I was wondering if you can tell what egg color you will get when crossing diffrent colored egg layers.

I have a White Leghorn / Marans mix and an Americana (Green) / Marans mix.

Is there some kind of formula or is it just chance.

Thanks,
Jonathan

 

[Cason]

I had read (somewhere) the green eggs (EE) are dominant, but I haven't proven that true, yet.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I have no idea how the egg genetics work but how it was told to me was if a chicken is a white egg layer and has EE gene you get blue eggs an if there a brown egg layers an have the EE gene you get green eggs

 

[Wynette]

I bred my green-egg laying EE to my EE roo; got 3 pullets, two of which lay an almost WHITE egg, the 3rd lays green. I think with EEs you just never know, as they do not breed true.

If you were to breed a green egg laying EE to a Marans (assuming the Marans was from decent stock and came from a line of dark layers), you'd get an "olive egger" - a bird that lays a dark green, olive/drab egg.

 

[soonerdog]

I have EE's. Some lay green eggs and one EE hen lays a brown egg.

 

[Akane]

With egg color genes they aren't just there or not there. They are each seperate and combine to create all sorts of shades. It's hard to say what shade of egg you'd get mixing whites, browns, and blues because each one covers the egg in a different layer of shell color. That's how you can sometimes get pink eggs. A light brown mixed a certain way with the colored egg genes can give you pink instead of the blue or green. Crossing white with very dark brown will probably get you something a bit lighter than the maran egg. The maran with the EE could either just give you lighter brown eggs like the leghorn cross or tinted eggs so they are the dark olive color others mentioned. That's just the most likely and not guranteed though. Sometimes when you cross EE with EE you just get plain white or light brown eggs. It depends what genes they are carrying.

 

[Jayon]

Thanks all for the information.

Jonathan