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Hi suebgbr - I still think it would be amazing to get generation after generation of true-bred blue-egg fluffy Silkies to match their turquoise earlobes. I mean white earlobes on chickens usually means white egg-layer and red earlobes usually means brown egg-layer so it would be neat to get a true honest-to-goodness blue earlobe fluffy Silkie to lay blue eggs generation after generation! I know, I'm dreaming but it's fun. Genetics is so complicated to remember the details w/ alleles and whether the males or the females carry certain traits, etc etc. I, for one, would love to see the traditional fluffy-feathered Silkie lay a blue egg rather than a hard-feathered Silkie cross - but that's just me and since I'm not a breeder guess I'll never see it in my lifetime.
One Buff Leghorn I have doesn't have white OR red lobes but golden earlobes and she lays tinted because in her founding history Buff Rock and Buff Minorca were some of the breeds used to get the Buff color for the Buff Leghorn. My understanding is that a show breeder has successfully created the Buff Leghorn to lay a truly white egg now just like the other well-known Leghorn varieties. There are even bantam Buff Leghorn breeders too. My girl is a solid Golden Girl from her head, eyes, lobes, beak, body, legs, feet, down to her toenails. The only color not Buff on her is a red medium comb and red wattles. She's quite a striking golden buff and so rare to have a Buff Leghorn hen - she has a calmer personality than the skittish White Legs too. Plus, she's a fantastic prolific layer just like Leghorns are famous for.
Let us know eventually how your blue-egg project turns out. Hope you're finding homes for the chickens rejected in your breeding program or usefully using them as table meat which would be more humane than turning them loose somewhere or giving them away as food for someone else's table - Smiles
I used to think it cruel to eat your own raised chickens until I realized it's more humane to quickly dispatch them to your own freezer than turn them away to some unknown future. It took me a long time to get to that thinking but my friends and I realized it's easy to get overrun with chickens if we don't make some hard choices to cull. Blessings and good luck with your project
