True Blue Whiting info please?

[shortgrass]

I have never seen a "recipe" for an autosexing blue bird, I believe it is impossible, genetically. Autosexing is not a single trait that can be incorporated into a breed, but a combination of traits that must either be present or absent to get any amount of autosexing.

Even a blue sexlink has proven impossible in my experience, though this might be possible with the right parents and a keen eye. The best you can do (IMO) is to incorporate an early sexing trait like single combs, and select for early comb development in the males, then you can cull the males at just a few weeks. In that sense, Whiting Blues, Arkansas Blues, or something similar, will give you a good start.

What happens to the patterns in the CLs , they just stop happening ng once we cross them? oh, I thought by crossing an autosexing breed female with a non but blue male, the babies would keep the pattern from mom...??

Well, lol scrap that. I don't really care about making a sexlink yet; I can tell a cockerel from day one anyway lol

 

[dheltzel]

You're right. I've been addicted for some time now. I've been reading BYC posts for a LONG time, but told myself .... don't you dare sign up ... it will only feed the addiction further... Oops. I've got a call in to Dr Whiting, and will ask him about the entire blue sex link idea. Mainly, what I'm after, is a pretty, autosexing bird that will lay a lovely blue egg. If the bird is blue, that's just another plus, but I'll take a pink bird if it will give me a good egg, and I know he's a she when she pips out of that egg!

Cream Legbars are 100% autosexing and are far better layers than my standard bred Ameraucanas. I also produce a lot of black sexlinks that lay very blue eggs by crossing a barred white egg laying hen (Barred Hollands or California Greys) with a black Ameraucana. I have both laying now and they are pretty comparable as far as I can tell, but the birds look so different it's fun to have both. I do have some blue sexlinks laying and they are great layers and very pretty (look so much like a blue Ameraucana I would challenge anyone to tell them apart). The male blue sexlinks were not discernible until they grew nice narrow, barred, hackle feathers. I can sex blue Ameraucanas at about the same age, so there is little benefit to the blue sexlinks, other than perhaps a bit better laying ability from their mother's side.

Legbars are getting more available and cheaper than ever. They are the breed you are looking for, and their chicks are highly salable as well.

 

[BDRanch]

I ordered a dozen CLB eggs last summer, received 14, but only two hatched (two males, of course). I need to start over w/ them, and would love to pair them w/ the Whiting True Blues to get a stouter body (just my preference) and prettier bird (I love the CBLs) that will lay a nice blue egg and -- maybe - auto sex.
Are your blue sex links the same bird as the Carolina Blue Sex Link advertised on My Pet Chicken? Those look like a gray/blue Ameraucana! Very pretty, and I would order some if I thought they would hatch up here at 8600' elevation! (I'm afraid to order anymore hatching eggs after my last experience).

 

[dheltzel]

@dheltzel ... how long do you suspect the early comb development idea would take?

Blue Copper Marans are sexable quite early by comb development. If I wanted a single-comb, blue egg laying blue chicken and couldn't get a Whiting or Arkansas blue, I would cross a Legbar and a Lavender Ameraucana. That keeps the homozygous blue egg laying which is the hardest trait to fix (males never show it and being dominant, it's hard to tell if a hen is homozygous or not). You'd have to breed for lavender (extended black base color) and single combs.

It would save a lot of time to get some Whitings or AK blues and merely select the males that show a comb the soonest. Those are your breeders for the next gen. I don't know how long it would take because I've never seen more than pics of those breeds. If you could obtain both, you could observe them and decide on the best base to work from.

 

[BDRanch]

I've got a batch of Whitings coming in April, but hoping to pick some up sooner from Dr Whiting ... if he still has them. And love the idea of a legbar w/ a lavender Ameraucana!

 

[dheltzel]

What happens to the patterns in the CLs , they just stop happening ng once we cross them?

oh, I thought by crossing an autosexing breed female with a non but blue male, the babies would keep the pattern from mom...??

Well, lol scrap that. I don't really care about making a sexlink yet; I can tell a cockerel from day one anyway lol

The pattern in CLB's is wild-type, that is a big part of what makes them autosexing. It's also what gives the pullet chicks the chipmunk stripes. A blue bird (either type of blue, this applies to lavender or self-blue also) must be extended black (EB) to show the blue, and extended black is completely dominant over wild-type, making the chicks black with white bibs and head spots if barred. If the chick is blue, then of course it carries the genes and will be a blue adult. Once you move to EB down, the chicks are not autosexing. Some people say they can sex barred EB birds like Barred Rocks by the size of the head spot or the color of the legs. This is rather subjective and not as accurate (or easily taught) as true auto-sexing or black sex-linked chicks.

It can be a little hard to sex some black sexlinks at hatch. The cross I did last year was not very sexable at hatch, I could pick a few females out, but not all of them, so I could not cull the male chicks until they were about 5 days old and had striped primary feathers. That was acceptable to me, but the blues from that cross did not show discernable barring on their primaries, so I have to raise them until the secondary characteristics appeared, and that was unacceptable.

 

[BDRanch]

Too bad you don't ship!

 

[shortgrass]

The pattern in CLB's is wild-type, that is a big part of what makes them autosexing. It's also what gives the pullet chicks the chipmunk stripes. A blue bird (either type of blue, this applies to lavender or self-blue also) must be extended black (EB) to show the blue, and extended black is completely dominant over wild-type, making the chicks black with white bibs and head spots if barred. If the chick is blue, then of course it carries the genes and will be a blue adult. Once you move to EB down, the chicks are not autosexing. Some people say they can sex barred EB birds like Barred Rocks by the size of the head spot or the color of the legs. This is rather subjective and not as accurate (or easily taught) as true auto-sexing or black sex-linked chicks.

It can be a little hard to sex some black sexlinks at hatch. The cross I did last year was not very sexable at hatch, I could pick a few females out, but not all of them, so I could not cull the male chicks until they were about 5 days old and had striped primary feathers. That was acceptable to me, but the blues from that cross did not show discernable barring on their primaries, so I have to raise them until the secondary characteristics appeared, and that was unacceptable.

Oh, ok gotcha, I'll lose the aytosex due to the coloration not being dominant in the cross... Well that helps me understand how hard it would be to sex them then

But I would still keep the blue eggs?.. so it actually helps because I was concerned about ending up with the blue bird with blue eggs and not be able to get rid of the stripes ha-ha..

Wow this is WAY more convoluted than hybrid wheat lol


Ok, now.. so what are these? A friend called my attention to them...

http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Day-Old-Baby-Chicks/Super-Blue-Egg-Layer-p1945.aspx

"It's a secret recipe" ... Sounds oddly familiar to what we've been looking at on MMM lol...

 

[dheltzel]

I ordered a dozen CLB eggs last summer, received 14, but only two hatched (two males, of course). I need to start over w/ them, and would love to pair them w/ the Whiting True Blues to get a stouter body (just my preference) and prettier bird (I love the CBLs) that will lay a nice blue egg and -- maybe - auto sex.
Are your blue sex links the same bird as the Carolina Blue Sex Link advertised on My Pet Chicken? Those look like a gray/blue Ameraucana! Very pretty, and I would order some if I thought they would hatch up here at 8600' elevation! (I'm afraid to order anymore hatching eggs after my last experience).

IDK what cross they are using for the "Carolina Blue", but I wouldn't pay much for eggs from a hybrid that is so easily made. Do they lay blue eggs or brown eggs? Tell me that and I can make a pretty good guess about their parentage. If I wanted 100% blue sexlinks that laid blue eggs, I would use California Gray hens covered by a splash Ameraucana roo. As I said earlier, I prefer pure Ams for blue birds with blue eggs, so I'd use black and splash Ams, or even better, Lavender Ams. You get what you want in a perpetuating strain the you can sell chicks from as pure Ams.

I wish I was setup to ship chicks, I should be absolutely inundated with CLB's this spring, I have about 30 pullets and soon will have the incubator capacity to hatch most of the eggs they lay. Shipping 25 CLB chicks from a single hatch would be ideal for someone like you, in a area where they are (apparently) not available. You could make your money back quickly selling some young breeding groups or surplus pullets. I bet I'm not the only one with a lot of CLB chicks for sale, and some are certainly able to ship.

 

[dheltzel]

Oh, ok gotcha, I'll lose the aytosex due to the coloration not being dominant in the cross... Well that helps me understand how hard it would be to sex them then

But I would still keep the blue eggs?.. so it actually helps because I was concerned about ending up with the blue bird with blue eggs and not be able to get rid of the stripes ha-ha..

Wow this is WAY more convoluted than hybrid wheat lol

Ok, now.. so what are these? A friend called my attention to them...

http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Day-Old-Baby-Chicks/Super-Blue-Egg-Layer-p1945.aspx

"It's a secret recipe" ... Sounds oddly familiar to what we've been looking at on MMM lol...

No secret at all! This is old news, I have some I made 2 years ago. You take commercial white leghorns and put a Black Ameraucana roo over them. The resulting chicks are exactly as they described.

What they don't tell you:
1) they are impossible to sex until they are about 4 months old, due to the dominant pea combs.
2) the blue egg color is substantially diluted by some genes the commercial strains of leghorns have the "bleach" the eggs to be super white. This bleaching affects the blue quite a bit, so that if you put them next to a CLB or Am egg, they look white. If put next to a white egg, then you can see they really are a pale sky blue. Not a bad color egg, and they did produce a lot of eggs, until . . .
3) mine went broody, alot!! Hard to believe with non-broody leghorns as mothers, but I think every one I had went broody multiple times, even in their first year. I couldn't break them and eventually free ranges them where they can go do their thing. They are very mean broodies too, I had to wear gloves when they were defending chicks.

I'm not a fan of white birds either, so I ended that experiment and went to Barred Hollands. The resulting pullets (blue and black) were sexlinked and are wonderful layers. Much, much bulkier than CLB's, they have the large deep body of a Barred Holland. This year I'm switching to California Greys as the female parent to hopefully get even better laying in the chicks, I'm certainly seeing a lot more eggs from the breeders. Last year I sold every one of those hybrid chicks I could hatch, the BH hens simply didn't lay that many eggs. This year I have 3 times the number of hens and am getting far more eggs per pullet than the BH's ever laid, and the CG's are not even 6 months old yet ! Their eggs are still small because they are young, but so far my impressions of CG's is very positive. The only downside is that they are as flighty as any leghorn, especially as youngsters. I'm pretty sure the Am roos will introduce the calmness I want, and the pea combs for winter hardiness, not to mention the very blue eggs.