To those smart people who breed blues & blue splashes

[Queen of the Lilliputians]

Wondering what would happen if one breeds a blue splash to a blue splash? Would the babies be blue, blue splash, and black; or all blue splash?

Sorry.. I did do some genetics research online.. and sorta understand about 1/2 of it!

Can't seem to figure out if blue splash is recessive <which I think it is?> or not.. or how black and white fit into that. I do seem to remember reading that black and blue splash are essentially the same thing, but with some sort of modifier?? I'm probably way wrong on this one...


Thanks guys!
Meghan

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

They would all be spash but it would wash out a bit in the breeding. Same as breeding blue to blue. Best to breed blue to black and keep the quality up.

 

[Queen of the Lilliputians]

Thanks April! That's a huge help.

Meghan

 

[LittleChickenRacingTeam]

adoptedbyachicken wrote...They would all be spash but it would wash out a bit in the breeding. Same as breeding blue to blue.

splash x splash=splash

bluexblue=1/2blue, 1/4black, 1/4splash according to what I understand.


Black = BB
Splash = bb
Blue = Bb

Matings:
Blue (Bb) X Blue (Bb) = 50% Blue (Bb), 25% Black (BB), 25% Splash (bb)
Blue (Bb) X Splash (bb) = 50% Blue (Bb), 50% Splash (bb)
Blue (Bb) X Black (BB) = 50% Blue (Bb), 50% Black (BB)
Splash (bb) X Black (BB) = 100% Blue (Bb)
Black (BB) X Black (BB) = 100% Black (BB)
Splash (bb) X Splash (bb) = 100% Splash (bb)

There can be many shades of blue, and some will come out darker, and others lighter. Even though "Splash X Black" produces all blue fowls, you can only expect about 50% to show the desired blue colouring. Also, to achieve the above percentages you would need to hatch many chickens.

It is better to say, for example, that by crossing two blue fowls, there is a 50% chance that a blue chick will hatch. Why?? Following Mendel's law of inheritance, each chick recieves two genes, one from its mother and the other from its father. Blue (Bb) is made up of both black (BB) and splash (bb). Using basic probability we have 4 combinations from crossing Blue (Bb) over Blue (Bb) which are:
BB, Bb, bB, bb
This is because each chick recieves a single gene from each parent.​

 

[Queen of the Lilliputians]

Littlechickenracingteam,

So in your example, would the chicken with the two BB genes be considered a "self blue" or is that something altogether different?

Going by your example, I'd say that splash is recessive, and all offspring from mating two such together will always be splash. Correct? WOOHOO! That rocks.

edited to add: Sorry, early in the morning and not enough coffee. Just reread your post and I see that BB creates Black offspring, not blue...

Meghan

 

[wclawrence]

No, splash is not recessive. Blue is co-dominant. If a bird has only one copy, it is blue, but with two copies, it is splash.

Lavendar is Recessive Blue. one in the same. one gene of Lav does nothing to the appearance. Two makes the bird lighter all over.

andalusian blue (that is the name for the co-dominant one) only effects the black regions of a bird, Lavendar effects all color.

 

[MissPrissy]

Wow. I am certainly confused with this thread. LOL