What Will Happen Next?

[NoelleK]

I have a beautiful Splash Copper Marans Roo. I mean gorgeous! And such a doll to humans and his girls.

While I'm not specifically trying breed much for now, I do want pretty eggs so I hatched out some of his eggs from my Crested Cream Legbars for Olive Eggers.

I have three of his daughters and, as expected, they are all a beautiful blue, all have crests, and all lay a nice, dark green egg. I'm a happy camper! And even though I knew one was a cockerel (sex linked) I let one of the sweetest boys grow up. Mostly out of curiosity. He looks JUST like his dad now, but blue (not splashed) and no feathering on his feet. Just as polite and sweet too at one year. Only slightly strange thing is his two front nails are white while the legs are dark... All of his "sisters" have the same.....

So with spring coming, and my lack of chicken genetics blaring, now what? If I were to hatch eggs from him, what would I get in terms of feather and egg color? I have Blue, Black and Splash Marans (2,2,2), Crested Cream Legbars (4), and (half)sisters (over CCLs, 3) among other randoms that I would not hatch out (Buff Orp, Silver Spangled Ham, Light Bramahas, and Splash Isbar [although this could be interesting.... ])

All I know for sure is he has to be barred and is blue. You cannot see much in the way or traditional barring, just very subtle on hackles and saddle feathers. Will his daughters carry his blue, brown, olive egg color? Over Splash, Blue or Black, will the offspring be barred or solid? I don't think I will get auto sexing, but am I wrong?

I do understand the BASICS of BBS genetics on the solid Marans, but what happens when you toss in the barring and blue egg genes? So over Black should give 50/50 Blue and black, over Blue would be a good mix and over Splash would be 50/50 Blue and Splash. But barring???? Egg color?

If pics would help, I can provide in the AM

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[The Moonshiner]

Your young rooster is carrying one gene for blue eggs and one gene for white eggs. He also carries the genes for brown eggs
Your Marans hens carry two genes for white eggs and the genes for brown..
That cross should produce half darker brown egg layers and half darker green egg layers.
The CCL hens carry two genes for blue eggs. That cross should produce green egg layers. The shade of green will vary.
With his sisters you could get brown or green egg layers. Again the shades of color can vary.

He has one gene for barring and one gene for non barring. Over the Marans and his sisters half of the offspring will be barred and half won't be.
Over the CCL hens all male offspring will be barred. Half females will be barred and half won't.
No sex links.
Feather patterns are going to get some variety. You rooster is basically carrying the CCL pattern under his blue as is his sisters. When crossed with the Marans their pattern will cover any of his CCL pattern and it sounds like you have the BBS part figured out. Those offspring will probably have some color leakage from the CCL genes he carries as well as from his BC pattern.
With the CCL hens some should get the legbar pattern. Statistically about half. With his sisters you will get the same thing but only about a quarter would get the legbar pattern.
Now you have to remember the barring getting thrown in. The chance of blue, black or splash thrown in. The solid pattern from the marans, the BC and legbar pattern. The amount of leakage. The cream gene and created genes from the legbars. The feather leg genes from marans etc. etc. all in the mix is going to produce a lot of variety in the offspring.
I think that about covers it. You had a lot going on in your post so let me know if I missed something or if this brings up more questions.

 

[NoelleK]

Awesome response! I could not ask for more information

So basically since I have his sister's already, he's mostly just going to be a handsome yard ornament. Doesn't sound like he'll be able to offer me much that I can't get from his dad and his sisters. That helps me agonizing over my decision on whether he's worth keeping for anything I have more reliable and predictable genetics through the others.

Thank you so much! I really do appreciate it and it helps me to understand a lot more and then I did before