What egg color is dominant?

[Chirpy]

I have a Silkie Roo (tinted eggs) and a Golden-laced Wyandotte Roo (brown eggs). I have two EE's who lay green eggs. What color will the eggs be from the above to Roos when mated to the EEs?

(I'm asking because I have a broody and I gave her two green eggs and others to hatch and have no way of knowing which Roo might be the daddy.)



(edited as I stand corrected on the color of Silkie eggs... since my Roo has never laid one I haven't seen one!

)

 

[TimG]

My understanding:

Tinted coloring (your EE eggs) is dominant. But, that means that an EE may carry one dominant tinting gene and one recessive non-tinting gene and could pass either to an offspring. Tinting is through and through, inside and out.

Brown egg laying is not determined by a single gene, but a combination. The brown in eggshells is a coating that can actually be scrubbed off to a degree. The inside of a brown egg shell is white (or at least much closer to white than the outside). The mating of a white egg layer and a brown egg layer will likely result in a hen that lays a brown egg that is lighter than the brown egg laying parent.

Tinted brown eggs look greenish; tinted white eggs look blueish.

So, there is no way of being sure what color eggs your pullets will lay. I think that they will lay either brown or green, but that even if the silkie is the father of all the chicks some could lay green and some (light) brown.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Silkies do not lay a white egg; it is ivory coloured, sometimes called tinted.