Questions about starting and EE flock?

herechickchick

Songster
12 Years
Mar 28, 2007
2,585
30
214
Memphis TN
Ok let me start by saying that I am not doing this, but if one wanted to where would you start? I am assuming that the rooster needs to be pure breed Ameraucana? Can the hens be any breed? Just curious.

Thanks
 
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OK that is what I thought. It just seems like all EEs are either black and white or kinda Campine colored (I know they aren't) but I just thought it would be cool to see more colors since there seems to be a huge market for them.
 
Hate to burst your bubble but you are going to get a lot of brown egg layers in the bunch. So if you are selling chicks saying they will get blue or green eggs you will have a lot of angry customers by late this year or early next.
 
You have another choice to get real blue eggs that is not a nightmare to find. That is the araucana.

Mixing an araucana or ameraucana with another breed does not guarantee blue or green eggs by any means.
 
AS EE have no standard, really the minimum you need are any hens that lay blue or green eggs and whatever rooster, any breed or any mix that strikes your fancy. That's it.

It is better to start with hens, you are 100% certain if they have the blue gene or not by the eggs they lay. With a rooster, you just don't have that same guarantee. Both roosters and hens can pass the blue egg gene, if they have it.

Then if you are going down through the generations, it really is best/easiest/most fool proof to stick with depending on only the hens as a guarantee of the parent having the blue egg gene. So mate the blue or green egg laying hens, again with whatever rooster(again EE or not) you like.. this will work well for however many generations.

It's extremely easy by this step, really. It is important to make sure only the green and blue eggs are set.. as it's a dominant trait so it's one of those "once lost, always lost unless introduced again" things. A rooster can have and pass the blue egg gene.. but if you are crossing a rooster with brown or white egg layers, you can be left hanging until his daughters start laying before you really know for sure if he had the gene in the first place. That's why I suggest sticking with using the blue/green egger hens for each generation.

Just because a rooster hatched from a blue or green egg does not mean he automatically has that gene. It's not true that a blue egg is proof of a bird being pure for it or a guarantee the chick out of one will have the gene.
 
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No. Araucana, ameraucana, even EE or lines bred specifically to have this trait can lay those eggs. It's pretty easy to introduce and only a slight challenge to pure-breed.

In other countries, Legbars is an accepted breed that lay blue or blue-green eggs.
 

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