True Blue Whiting info please?

[PeasPoultry]

I have Lavender Ameraucanas and they all have perfect little pea combs but their eggs are a pale blue green. The WTB blue eggs are a lot brighter. I'm thinking the bright white of a Leghorn might've helped with that but added straight combs into the mix?

 

[JRNash]

There is no direct linkage of those genes. They occur on the same chromosome, but that does not mean they are linked. Cream Legbars are single combed and have very blue eggs (at least mine do). It is now trivial to create a breed like Whitings if you want single combs and blue eggs, just start with a Legbar.

I prefer pea-type combs because they incur less frostbite concerns, but I imagine in warmer areas, they have the opposite view. My best blue egg layers are a sexlinked hybrid I create with a black Ameraucana (blue eggs and pea combs, both dominant) over California Grey pullets (single combs, white eggs, incredible egg producers). The only "problem" I have is they lay so much the blue fades to nearly white after a while, but I can live with that. Their phenotype is almost identical to a black Ameraucana pullet, but they are 100% sexable at hatch, unlike real Ameraucanas.

Have you noticed any correlation between leg and egg color?

 

[dheltzel]

Have you noticed any correlation between leg and egg color?

No. Ameraucanas have slate (dark) shanks,Legbars are more willow. Egg color seems entirely separate from other features. The correlation with pea combs is mostly true if your blue egg layer has a pea comb and your non-blue egg layer does not. Since you can't tell the genotype on males, the recommendation is to select males with pea combs to increase your chances of using a male with the blue egg gene. If you were using a Legbar and a pea combed white egg layer, you would go the other way, avoid males with pea combs, since your blue egg gene carrier hasa single comb.

 

[MeepBeep]

Cream Legbars are single combed and have very blue eggs (at least mine do).

What lineage are you CL and have you compared your CL eggs to other blue layers?

I ask because my CL breed stock consist of A/B/C Greenfire lines, the Rees Greenfire line and a supposed unrelated Canadian CL line and none of those lines lay a true blue egg when held up in a side by side comparison with other true blue layers... Not saying they are not blue, but it's clear they have some brown contamination giving them a mint blue/green shade not the true blue shade I see in other pure blue layers...

I'm working on my own blue layer line, and with that maintaining the true blue egg color is the number one goal and although I will use CL in the breeding program initially I know I will need to breed out their color contamination eventually to get back to the blue egg color I desire n the line...

I was hoping the Whiting True Blues would gave me another option and possibly increase egg size/production but it's starting to look like they are horribly contaminated so that will likely not happen...

 

[dheltzel]

What lineage are you CL and have you compared your CL eggs to other blue layers?

I ask because my CL breed stock consist of A/B/C Greenfire lines, the Rees Greenfire line and a supposed unrelated Canadian CL line and none of those lines lay a true blue egg when held up in a side by side comparison with other true blue layers... Not saying they are not blue, but it's clear they have some brown contamination giving them a mint blue/green shade not the true blue shade I see in other pure blue layers...

I'm working on my own blue layer line, and with that maintaining the true blue egg color is the number one goal and although I will use CL in the breeding program initially I know I will need to breed out their color contamination eventually to get back to the blue egg color I desire n the line...

I was hoping the Whiting True Blues would gave me another option and possibly increase egg size/production but it's starting to look like they are horribly contaminated so that will likely not happen...

I have a line of unknown origin and also some Reese direct from Greenfire. Both lay eggs that are as blue as my various strains of Ameraucanas. Of course there is some variation, even day to day and certainly from one pullet to another. I have a lot of mixed breed hens that lay various colors of green and brown, descended from hatchery Easter eggers. The Legbars have never laid eggs that I would call green. My Ams lay different shades of blue also, some with a green tinge making them look turquoise. I find that rather pretty, but a pure, sky blue egg like the Legbars typically lay is even better.

Overall, I would rate the Legbars as bluer than my Ams, though they are very, very close in color.

 

[JRNash]

One of my EE lays a nice blue egg. Gonna put one of the whitings over her

 

[eggame]

Anyone with WTB laying eggs, please post a picture! I would love to see all the color variations.

 

[MeepBeep]

Anyone with WTB laying eggs, please post a picture! I would love to see all the color variations.

May I suggest anyone that takes pictures of their eggs, go to a national consumer friendly paint store like Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, or even Walmart and get the closest paint chip card(s) they can fin their egg color and lay the egg next to that paint chip car when they take the picture... This way no matter what the picture color looks like or what the other peoples monitors are set to they can go pick up that same paint chip card and compare it to their eggs in person... Reason being photographs are deceptive, especially digital ones where all digital cameras do automatic color correction on the fly nowadays that can easily shift colors all over the place... If the picture of the egg is taken with the paint chip card in the same photo under the same light with the same camera anyone can visualize the color on their end correctly...

 

[JRNash]

this one has the floppy comb

 

[JRNash]

this one stands up