The "Ask Anything" to Nicalandia Thread

[drangle]

I have read it is better to use a dark egg rooster over a blue egg hen when making olive eggers. I have the opposite, CCL roo and marans hen.
what differences can I expect? how could I create deeper olive or teal color eggs with this cross in future generations?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Nicalandia may be able to answer in more detail on this, but from my understanding some of the brown egg color genes are sexlinked, which is why it's better to use a male Marans and female Legbars. Female Marans can only pass those sexlinked genes to their sons, which means that their daughters with a Legbar rooster will not inherit them and therefore will not lay as deep of an olive-colored egg as females from the opposite crossing. Male Marans will pass those genes to both sons and daughters, so their daughters with Legbar hens get the benefit of the full 'dose' of brown egg color genes. As for how to improve that in future generations with the cross you have available, that's beyond what I'm confident I can accurately answer so I'll leave that to others.

Slight edit for more clarity.​

 

[nicalandia]

Okay. It's got an off white/yellow tinge to it. The picture somewhat shows it, but it's more noticeable in person. Will she only pass silver?

Perhaps its the lighting, but it appears to be Silver to me. She can only pass Silver to her sons.

 

[nicalandia]

Nicalandia may be able to answer in more detail on this, but from my understanding there are brown egg color genes that are sexlinked, which is why it's better to use a male Marans and female Legbars. Female Marans can only pass those sexlinked genes to their sons, which means that their daughters with a Legbar rooster will not inherit them and therefore will not lay as deep of an olive-colored egg as females from the opposite crossing. Male Marans will pass those genes to both sons and daughters, so their daughters with Legbar hens get the benefit of the full 'dose' of brown egg color genes. As for how to improve that in future generations with the cross you have available, that's beyond what I'm confident I can accurately answer so I'll leave that to others.

Thanks, I find this post very accurate and on point. While we don't know just how many mutations or alleles affect egg color, I believe there could be at least 12(by the way the offspring behave) and at least two of those are sex linked. Their input is about 10% total of the egg color so the reciprocal cross between a white/blue egg layer and a chocolate egg color will somewhat vary(meaning that the f1 hens from Dark egg Male vs White/Blue egg hen, will lay a darker shade) the difference is only 10% and might not be noticeable.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Perhaps its the lighting, but it appears to be Silver to me. She can only pass Silver to her sons.

What about her daughters?

 

[nicalandia]

What about her daughters?

She will not pass any of her sex linked genes like barring and silver to her daughters hens these type of hens(Barred/Silver) are used to produce sex linked chicks

 

[JacinLarkwell]

She will not pass any of her sex linked genes like barring and silver to her daughters hens these type of hens(Barred/Silver) are used to produce sex linked chicks

Okay, so from her I should expect black(ish) daughters and barred sons. What about the possible birchen you mentioned?

 

[nicalandia]

Okay, so from her I should expect black(ish) daughters and barred sons. What about the possible birchen you mentioned?

Birchen is one of the e alleles found on chickens, they hatch mostly black for reference Birchen Maran

Since birchen is dominant to all except extended black(E>ER>eWh>e+>eb) I don't know if she is pure for Birchen or heterozygous so if she is ER/eb(very likely) if you cross her with a rooster not black the chicks may end up with many patterns so sex linkage will not be visible for example if any of the rooster has wheaten and she is ER/eb, some of her chicks may end up being eWh/eb so basically yellow with no visible headspot

 

[3KillerBs]

@nicalandia

To clarify, after someone brought it up on my Silver-Laced Australorp(ish) thread,

The lacing found on blue birds isn't the same as the lacing in birds such as Silver-Laced Wyandottes, right?

It's a different gene and a different mechanism, right?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Birchen is one of the e alleles found on chickens, they hatch mostly black for reference Birchen Maran
View attachment 3335753

Since birchen is dominant to all except extended black(E>ER>eWh>e+>eb) I don't know if she is pure for Birchen or heterozygous so if she is ER/eb(very likely) if you cross her with a rooster not black the chicks may end up with many patterns so sex linkage will not be visible for example if any of the rooster has wheaten and she is ER/eb, some of her chicks may end up being eWh/eb so basically yellow with no visible headspot

She must be heterozygous since there aren't any females here that have it, and the white orpington is the only male that could have it.

I'm not specifically going to use her for sexlinking, but it would certainly be nice to know a few weeks in that the barred ones are male instead of waiting and getting more attached