Splash or leakage?

[jjjennejjj]

I see two that look like heterozygous dominant white with black leaking through and one that could be splash, but could also be heterozygous dominant white and blue. The chick down coloring also indicates that we're looking at the effects of heterozygous dominant white.

Do you have pictures of your 'pale yellow Ameraucana'? The chicks have yellow skin and both Silverudd's Blues and Ameraucanas should have white skin, so I suspect that this 'snow wheaten' project you refer to is either in very early stages, or just a fancy name for Easter-eggers. Pictures of the Silverudd's might be helpful, too.

The pale yellow could be an EE. The source is a serious breeder working on a project, but she was one of the first chicks I ever purchased and I wasn’t asking for anything specific. The others should be pure. He was my only rooster and the 2 ameraucanas and one of the Silverudd’s blue hens were my only blue egg layers.

 

[jjjennejjj]

I see two that look like heterozygous dominant white with black leaking through and one that could be splash, but could also be heterozygous dominant white and blue. The chick down coloring also indicates that we're looking at the effects of heterozygous dominant white.

Do you have pictures of your 'pale yellow Ameraucana'? The chicks have yellow skin and both Silverudd's Blues and Ameraucanas should have white skin, so I suspect that this 'snow wheaten' project you refer to is either in very early stages, or just a fancy name for Easter-eggers. Pictures of the Silverudd's might be helpful, too.

How can I tell what color skin they have? I only check the legs.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

On adults, look at the bottoms of their feet. Those with the genes for yellow skin will have a yellowish patch there, while those with white skin should have a pinkish or white patch instead. The young ones have a greenish cast to their legs that could indicate them having yellow skin, but on reviewing the pictures again, that could just be the lighting.

The project Am hen is heterozygous for the pea comb gene (Ameraucanas should be homozygous) and her type is off, I would consider her an Easter-egger personally. She looks to have the dominant white gene, though, so she's the mother of at least the two chicks with black flecks based on their plumage and that they have beards. The third one with the blue flecks, I can't tell if it's bearded or not, nor what comb type it has, so I don't know positively which hen is the mother from what I can see.

 

[jjjennejjj]

Thanks for all the input. They are the first of my own eggs that I hatched as an afterthought along with others that I had ordered from breeders. Since I was down to just the one rooster, I realized I could at least be sure of that. (The others had been killed while free ranging during winter.) I added only blue and green eggs to the incubator so that I could narrow down the possible hens. By doing so I discovered that hatching my own eggs yields 95-100% viability vs mail-ordered eggs which typically yield closer to 30% for me. At least I've learned that my incubators are sufficient! Anyways, I'll post pics as they grow. I'm going to build breeding pens this summer so that I can protect the lines I want to breed true, the others will just be fun to play around with.