So this discussion of combs and genetics has me thinking this is a good point to introduce my question:
We have this EE rooster (hatchery Araucana/Ameraucana, but who are they fooling?) with a big ugly comb. He has pretty color feathers and a nice streaming tail, so Nelson adores him. The Easter Egger roos seem to be jerks, and this guy is top jerky jerk of the bunch ... not only is he jerky with the other roosters, but when he mounts the hens he is rough. He gives the hens extra head pecks and seems to scratch around a lot on their wings and backs (compared to the other roos).
I'm campaigning for excluding him from the flock, but also would like to see if we can get some olive eggers by working in both directions (Cuckoo Marans roo over EE hens, and this EE roo over the CM hen). We've only got two Cuckoo Marans hens, and one of those probably isn't fit for breeding because she seems to have issues, though she is looking a LOT better as she matures (not quite a year old). We've got one Cuckoo Marnas roo waiting to be integrated, and several EE hens that lay various shades of blue/green eggs, some of the eggs are pretty dark green already.
We've hatched some mutts previously, and the ones from the green EE eggs (either Buff Orpington, Black Australorp or Brown Leghorn roo ... and a couple bantam cochin-like things) have Bubble Gum combs ... one of them is so floppy it blocks one eye, the poor guy. I'm not sure what that says about the EE hens (most of this talk about genetics makes my head swim because it is all new to me), but we weren't really selecting the eggs for anything more than being near the broody hens when they went broody. None of the hatchlings was female.
This one particular EE roo is the only EE roo we are thinking of keeping, but I'm thinking with the general jerkiness or the roos in this "breed" and the big ugly comb on this guy he isn't going to be much use in getting "pretty" eggs and probably isn't going to be that great for the hens in the long run. He hasn't been integrated for very long, and is maybe slightly more gentle with the hens than he was on day one, but not by much. He seems to be upsetting the other roos and keeping the flock stirred up more than I like to see.
What would you guys contribute to the debate? Do you need more info? I'm really keen to get pretty eggs, but ...
Would photos help?