Question on egg color gene

[cottontail farm]

I'm sorry if this is a basic question but I have been unable to find an answer. Is the gene for egg color carried by the hen or the rooster or both? Taking this further, if I were to hatch eggs from my EE hen (olive eggs) bred to a cochin rooster, is it possible to anticipate what color eggs would come from resulting hens?

 

[SnowPeeOstrichU]

I think it's probably carried by both hen and roo, but I'm not an expert.. Are olive eggs a specific breed or a cross? If they're a cross, the hens from your EE and roo might be a combo of hers + his breed respectively.. Not sure.

 

[cottontail farm]

I assume she's a cross, an EE who just lays really dark green eggs. She's still a prolific layer at 3 yrs old and i wondered what the results might be if hatched some of her eggs. I'd like to try to keep her genes.

 

[Kev]

From both parents.

If you want the darker green color, your best bet would be roosters from a darker egg breed/line as it is basically a darker egg plus the blue eggshell genes. Welsumer or marans would be great choices. Lighter green is from lighter tinted eggs plus the blue eggshell gene. So your cochin(light tan eggs) would likely throw green eggs more towards lighter green shades but you might still be surprised with one or a few on the darker side.

If she is pure for the blue eggshell gene, then all of her daughters will lay eggs in green shades.
If she is not pure for the gene then only half of her daughters will lay green shades with the rest laying tan shades most likely.

If she has a pea comb, keep the daughters that have pea combs, especially if half come out with single combs.

If she has a single comb, there is no way to tell which daughters might be colored egg layers.

 

[cottontail farm]

Kev, Thank you very much for all of the valuable information. This is above and beyond what I was looking for but just what I needed to know.

 

[Kev]

Glad to help, and thank you for the nice words.

I'm just not a fan of short, blunt answers that don't really explain much.