So im starting an EE/Ameraucana/blue egg project

[Roosterfry]

My eventual goal will be to have a bird that meets all the APA standards of an ameraucana with a new feather pattern. what I'v e done so far is I ordered a bunch of easter eggers from a hatchery, and to my surprise I was very impressed with the quality of the EE's they all have three row pea combs, dark legs and fluffy facial muffs, two of my hens actually lay a pretty blue egg. So what I've done is culled out the rooster I didn't like and bred the blue egg laying hens to the rooster with the best feathering and dark leg coloring. I hatched the eggs that were pure light blue only. Now I'm going to take a rooster that hatched from a blue egg and breed him back to the blue egg laying hens and repeat the process another time before next spring. My next step to keep from inbreeding to much is I found a guy who has 4 hens that he bought from an old man. The old man doesn't know where he got them but all 4 hens are solid white, good facial muffs, pea comb and dark gray slate colored legs and lay a REALLY nice pigmented blue egg. I'm going to give him a cockeral that i hatched from a blue egg and then I'm going to get some eggs from him since he's got such nice hens and use that rooster that I get from his eggs this coming spring. Not sure exactly where this all is going to go but I know surely I'll get some nice blue eggs! I'm mean seriously I found out last year that even when ur trying to find a true blue egg it's hard to find In my experience even in the apa standard araucanas and ameraucana's. Anyone have any thoughts? Or would like to be part of this? I wish to possibly come up with a new APA excepted color pattern for ameraucana's even though I'm having to start out with EE's and Ameraucana's.

 

[faykokoWV]

I agree with your idea and have thought about doing the same thing! You can't find ameraucanas with blue eggs, at least not and egg that everyone agrees is blue. I hear a lot of, "well if you look at it outside it looks blue, or its kinda blue" or even worse, people tell you they are blue, but you get them and they are really more green. I think its a wonderful idea and I'd be interested in working with you on it.

Have you thought about using ameraucana that are closer in color to your EE's so that you aren't fighting the feather color genetics as much?

 

[cashdl]

You are also going to need to select for skin color also if you are serious about this. The ameraucana is a white skined bird. Most EE's are yellow skinned.

Lanae

 

[Roosterfry]

Yeah I know exactly what you mean. I'm sort of the type to say take it outside and look at it, I do believe natural light reveals true color... But to check myself I have been tested to make sure I'm not color blind and have gotten other people to look at color for me, even people who don't know anything about egg color. Ha the funny thing is I have a friend who bought some eggs from the guy who has the white ameraucana hens and he was disgusted with the egg color and thought they were white. I looked at them and thuoght they were blue! We looked at some of my eggs and figured out he was a lil colorblind. To him an olive or bluish green egg looks more blue, so being color blnd can be a factor. Lots of men have trouble distingushing blue from blue green eggs. I did have some other hens that laid olive and some bluish green but I culled them. I'm down to two hens that I like, one lays a PERFECT light blue and one lays a 99 percent of a perfect blue. My cockerals that hatched from blue eggs will be ready to breed hopefully in about six weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing what color eggs my pullets that hactched from the blue eggs will lay since I really don't know what color genes the rooster carries since I haven't seen his egg yet!

 

[Roosterfry]

Quote:
That is a good idea, fortunatley my birds already have pale skin, not yellow at all. at first I'm trying to find very BLUE eggs not mint or greenish. I want t breed out the brown gene completely! Then work on a specific feather color. As for my best hen right now her feather color is white with gray speckles on her head.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Quote:
That is a good idea, fortunatley my birds already have pale skin, not yellow at all. at first I'm trying to find very BLUE eggs not mint or greenish. I want t breed out the brown gene completely! Then work on a specific feather color. As for my best hen right now her feather color is white with gray speckles on her head.

Did I miss where you mentioned WHICH color/feather pattern you're working on? Do you have pictures of your birds? I would love to see them!

 

[Roosterfry]

I'm not really working on feather color much at this time, I think breeding out the brown egg gene to get pure blue is going to be first priority. It may take at least 4 generations. Then the next hurdle will be figuring out what feather color pattern is the most dominant and then cull out all the feather colors that are decided to be undesirable then name the feather color pattern that can be bred consistently.

 

[Roosterfry]

I do need to take some pictures and put em on here, I'll take some soon of my young birds that's are my first generation working on this project. they are about 5 weeks old now, but unfortunatly the parent stock are molting so it will take a lil longer to get some good pictures of them

 

[Bravo]

I have a similar project going on only I just want a line of EE's with amazing blue egg color. I love hatching EE's and never knowing what colors are going to pop out

Right now I am on my F2 generation and the problem I am having is I feel like I am hatching all flippin boys LOL!

I think the difficulty you are going to have is breeding out the other egg colors. Just because the roo hatched from a blue egg doesn't mean he will be homozygous blue. You will have to deal with other factors and it might take you several generations just to isolate the egg color you want to work with.

Here is my project--maybe it will give you some ideas, even though we are breeding for different things.

I have a gorgeous silver duckwing EE roo who is homozygous blue (tried and tested). I bred him to white leghorns so that I didnt have to deal with any of the brown influence from the eggs. The girls that hatched all lay a light blue egg so I know they are heterozygous blue. I have then bred them back to their father and hatched the offspring, which are my F2's.

I am keeping only the girls that lay the bluer colored egg (since half of the F2 generation will be homozygous and the other half will be heterozygous)--anything that lays a light blue is being culled to the layer pen. My F3 cross is breeding them back to a pure Ameraucana who comes from a line of gorgeous robins-blue egg color. Since he is purebred I know he is homozygous. Hopefully the F3's hatched will lay the color I am going after (or close) but if not I will breed them back to their father (the Ameraucana).

I'm just doing this for entertainment purposes, though

If I really wanted amazing blue eggs lickity-split it'd be cheaper to buy them LOL

Best of luck with your project! I will be following so I hope you make a blog

 

[KellyHM]

My EEs lay gorgeous blue eggs...in any light.