Silver Laced Wyandottes that lay blue eggs

[DarJones]

I do not have either the original SLW or the Brown Leghorns from Bramwell. I thought about maintaining the Brown Leghorns but did not have the resources to maintain the breeding effort as well as the brown leghorns.

I talk to Jerry Foley from time to time. He still has his SLW's.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I do not have either the original SLW or the Brown Leghorns from Bramwell. I though about maintaining the Brown Leghorns but did not have the resources to maintain the breeding effort as well as the brown leghorns.

I talk to Jerry Foley from time to time. He still has his SLW's.

Hopefully, the Bramwell Leghorns exist under the care of other individuals. I knew the Foleys still had Wyandottes. Their stock is gorgeous.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Why did you decide to focus on silver laced instead of gold? Personal preference?

 

[DarJones]

I just wanted a Silver Laced Wyandotte that lays blue eggs. It would be easy to develop a gold laced line given that I still have three pretty good looking hens that lay blue eggs.

 

[DarJones]

I checked all of the young birds this evening as they went on the roost. Two males look good enough to get DNA tested. Probability is good that at least one will be homozygous for blue eggs. I have 2 older males that have too much white on the saddle so I want to cull them and replace with better looking offspring.

Four young females have outstanding lacing. I will probably have them DNA tested to find out which are homozygous for blue eggs. There is a good chance I will wind up with 4 out of the 6 (males and females) that are homozygous. If so, we're off to the races in terms of getting a reasonably stable black laced silver line of blue egg layers.

I'm thinking pretty hard about developing a golden laced line. I have 2 young males one of which has decent lacing. If I test both and one of them is homozygous for blue eggs, it would be trivial to breed him to the 3 golden laced hens and produce a golden laced line.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I checked all of the young birds this evening as they went on the roost. Two males look good enough to get DNA tested. Probability is good that at least one will be homozygous for blue eggs. I have 2 older males that have too much white on the saddle so I want to cull them and replace with better looking offspring.

Four young females have outstanding lacing. I will probably have them DNA tested to find out which are homozygous for blue eggs. There is a good chance I will wind up with 4 out of the 6 (males and females) that are homozygous. If so, we're off to the races in terms of getting a reasonably stable black laced silver line of blue egg layers.

I'm thinking pretty hard about developing a golden laced line. I have 2 young males one of which has decent lacing. If I test both and one of them is homozygous for blue eggs, it would be trivial to breed him to the 3 golden laced hens and produce a golden laced line.

I would definitely do gold too if you have the capability

 

[nicalandia]

I will make my two cents comment right about now: Since currently you are willing to spend money on DNA Testing, why don't you just keep breeding back to pure Wyandotte? Get rid of the autosomal red that is on your stock, improve body and feather type orders of magnitud faster than what you could acomplish with your current breeding plan..

 

[DarJones]

I have plans to backcross to SLW, but it has to be done from a very stable position of having verified homozygous blue egg layers that have excellent phenotype. There is a genetic reason why this has to be done carefully. Wyandottes double down on the brown egg genetics. It will be very difficult to stabilize a blue egg layer once I make a backcross. I want a good looking line of blue egg layers before I do the backcross. From that point, I can intercross and in 3 generations be back to a blue egg laying line. It was VERY difficult to keep selecting blue egg layers from the original cross.

I should have been a bit more specific about the birds I currently have. I have 16 older birds ranging from 2 years to 5 years old. 3 are golden laced. I have 18 young birds ranging from 5 to 7 months old. The total is 34 chickens plus I have 4 roosters in a cage that will be culled unless I find a good reason to keep them. The important part is that I have a total of 10 birds with good to excellent lacing. 6 are young, 4 are old. One option would be to DNA test all of the birds with good lacing and keep the homozygous oocyanin while culling everything else. That would probably get me down to 6 chickens to carry forward. I think that narrows the genetic base too much and offers too much opportunity for hidden recessives to show up.

My choice is to keep most of the hens I currently have and select the best laced rooster from my young birds. By breeding him to the best laced hens, I should have a group of chicks that move significantly closer to SLW type.

 

[nicalandia]

I have plans to backcross to SLW, but it has to be done from a very stable position of having verified homozygous blue egg layers that have excellent phenotype. There is a genetic reason why this has to be done carefully. Wyandottes double down on the brown egg genetics. It will be very difficult to stabilize a blue egg layer once I make a backcross.

That is true, I forgot about that. If you just keep backcrossing to Wyandotte to improve type(feather and body) you will end up with green eggers.

 

[DarJones]

Some of my young hens have started laying. I can tell from the small eggs. Two hens are outside right now cackling at each other as they argue about who gets to use the nest. I set up a few more nests with a couple of eggs to tempt them.