Silver Laced Wyandottes that lay blue eggs

[3KillerBs]

 

[ColtHandorf]

Huh?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

@DarJones , quick question. Between the homozygous and heterozygous blue eggs, can you tell just by looking? Or do the shells inside and outside look exactly the same?

 

[DarJones]

I have not tested any hens yet to verify, however, I can tell color gradients between eggs. I am reasonably certain that heterozygous hens lay lighter blue eggs. When I deliberately hatch the deepest blue eggs, the resulting hens tend to produce deep blue eggs. When I hatch the lighter colored eggs, I get a lot of hens that either lay brown or light blue eggs. Keep in mind that when a hen first starts laying her eggs will usually be deeper blue.

Since I am now using homozygous roosters (since late April 2022), I am eagerly awaiting results as this round of pullets begin laying. If my math is correct, about 65% of them should be homozygous for oocyanin.

On the negative front, two of the homozygous roosters have too much white on the saddle. I have one of them penned as he was dominant. I want the other two to father this round of chicks.

 

[DarJones]

I banded about a dozen young hens this evening. Most are not yet laying. I used yellow bands carefully pulling a hen off the roost and applying a band to her left leg. Why left? Because my standard is that a blue egg layer gets a band on the left and a brown egg layer gets a band on the right. So how do I know these will lay blue eggs given that they have not yet started laying? I have 3 roosters that are fathers to all of these chicks and the roosters tested homozygous for oocyanin.

Special notes: I took photos just after putting on each band. The band number is visible in the pictures. How many of these look very good in SLW traits? One is outstanding, 2 more are very good, 2 are decent with some muddled colors and the rest will probably be rehomed.

I'm also about to cull a mature hen. She is a consistent layer currently producing about 6 eggs per week. Why? Well, she has pretty good Wyandotte body type, decent silver laced feather colors, and a straight comb. But this is not why I am going to cull her. She lays a small blue egg with fairly high porphrin coating and averaging 47 grams. I'm targeting 65 to 70 grams. Her eggs have been consistently small for over a year. The combination of small egg, porphyrin. plus straight comb is a "3 strikes you're out" for me. I will probably give her to a neighbor who has a small laying flock.

Here are pictures of banded birds from this evening. I did not get a good pic of #19 so will have to add her later. Several of these are obvious culls but I will keep them for now to verify they all lay blue eggs.

 

[ColtHandorf]

16 and 17 look quite nice.

 

[DarJones]

As does #001. I will cull several with too much white and won't let that rooster breed again this year. I also have 2 young roosters that look very good. Between the mature hens of which 5 or 6 are very good and the pullets that are just starting to lay, I should wind up with some decent chicks to select from this fall.

The pitfall of the cross I made is the color genes are compromised by about a dozen other major genes and modifiers. It takes time to get back to SLW phenotype. Now that oocyanin is close to being stabilized, I can focus on getting other traits back to standard.

 

[DarJones]

A tale of 3 eggs.

The large egg is from a turkey hen that started laying at 7 months old and has produced about 50 eggs so far. The large and small blue eggs are from two hens one of which produces eggs from 67 to 72 grams. The small egg is 46 grams. The hen that lays the small eggs is going to be given away as soon as I find someone who needs a good hen that lays small eggs.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

A tale of 3 eggs.

The large egg is from a turkey hen that started laying at 7 months old and has produced about 50 eggs so far. The large and small blue eggs are from two hens one of which produces eggs from 67 to 72 grams. The small egg is 46 grams. The hen that lays the small eggs is going to be given away as soon as I find someone who needs a good hen that lays small eggs.

View attachment 3391960

You would consider those blue eggs? Not trying to judge, legitimately curious. It could be my screen, they just look like a sage green to me

 

[Iluveggers]

You would consider those blue eggs? Not trying to judge, legitimately curious. It could be my screen, they just look like a sage green to me

They look blue on my screen. I hate that cameras change the color of eggs sometimes!