I have a croad Langshan female, Dominique females, red females uncertain lineage(came in a mixed heavy breed box from cackle) , white rock females, welsummer females, Easter egger females(light green eggs) , a French black copper Marans rooster, a white rock rooster, an Easter egger rooster (dark gray)
What can I get as crosses and which might be "best" for anything or particularly useful? Is the white rooster useful for sex links with the dominiques? I know the ee and the Marans could be olive eggs.
If I could add one male what should it be to get useful crosses? Rhode island or new Hampshire red male maybe?
Thanks.
Croad Langshans ideally should lay "plum" (dark brown with a pale bloom) but it's exceedingly rare for them to do it, so most lay medium browns (dark brown if you're lucky). Marans are actually descended from Langshans if you go far enough down their family trees.
If you want feathered legs, tall stature, and a more traditional French (feather footed) Marans look, go ahead and breed Langshan and BCM. If you're looking just to get some nice dark eggs, breed your BCM with the darkest layers you've got. If you want sure fire olive eggers, breed your BCM over your EE instead of the other way around because...
EE have no defined ancestry. They're mutts, so you can guarantee absolutely nothing about their egg genes and often very little about their genotypes. If your EE roo has a very neat pea comb, you can reliably assume he carries at least one blue egg gene (the genes are very close on the same chromosome, so they tend to get inherited together more than 90% of the time). If he has a sloppy, tall or otherwise odd pea comb, he is likely heterozygous for both pea comb and blue eggs.
White is a funky color in chickens. Silver gets rid of gold--not black--so if you have a red-and-white bird or a completely white bird, you're actually looking at "white" and not silver, which means you cannot use them in any sex linked breedings as white is autosomal (the trait isn't located on a sex chromosome). If a bird is black and white but not red, it's likely silver (if a rooster has red shoulders but is otherwise black and white, he's probably heterozygous for gold). White cannot be used over barring to make a sex link, even though it's a solid color.
Red (and any other colors with striped down as chicks) is typically used to make autosexing barred breeds because barring dilutes down color (in addition to giving headspots) more obviously on striped backgrounds, though if one doesn't want to make an autosexing breed and only sex linked F1 chicks, most solid colors should work. For instance, crossing a splash rooster over barred hens to make solid blue pullets and barred blue boys.
Keep your Rocks together because pure bred birds will always be worth more, and they're not good for any particular halfbreeds. You might elect to keep your EE together for the same reason, but as they're already mutts, you don't need to bother.
More info and pictures would be appreciated
