What will my mixed chicks look like?

aurajean515

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Hello!
My broody hen Annie is sitting on a mixed clutch of eggs. Quite a few of the eggs were laid by either of my two Easter Eggers, and the father is my RIR BigMac.
The eggs are hatching now and I’ve become very curious to know want this cross might look like and what color eggs they might lay? My hens both lay blue eggs.
 

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EE's have a lot of mix in their genes, so it will be hard to tell what the chicks could come out looking like for certain.

However, you rooster is a wonderful red based RIR which is like the perfect mixing pallet for breeding. Chances are that you will get red based partridge of varying degree with your 2 EE hens. My guess is all chicks will be chipmunk down colored from the EE's with the RIR, varying tones....unless one of the pictured EE's has a dominant background color that could take over...but I'm not seeing white or black. It is possible somebody has recessive white, including your RIR, that takes over. If so, you could get a yellow chick.

As to egg color. RIR is a mid brown tone. Since you say your roo is pure RIR, he will carry the genes for mid brown tone.

EE's are mixes. If the hen is laying a blue-green egg (any shade) she will likely have only 1 blue egg shell gene (since she isn't pure though many hatcheries are doing breed backs into EE lines so it is possible she *might* have 2 blue genes).

If we assume 1 blue gene, this will be the formula with your RIR rooster:
50% statistically will get a blue shell gene. 50% won't.
That means of the hens of this generation, 50% will lay green eggs....likely more green than mom's blue as the RIR brown wash genes will have been added over the blue base shell which produces green.
50% will not get any blue gene and will lay some kind of brown tone, likely lighter than the RIR mid-tone depending if mom has any brown genes. The truer blue laying color mom's eggs are, the less likely she passed any brown genes. Usually the color of egg between a light brown/cream layer and a darker brown layer is mid-tone between.

If your EE hens are lucky to have 2 blue genes (unlikely, but let's suppose), then all the chicks will get 1 blue gene so you will have all green layers.

All chicks should have pea combs as both moms are pea combed and pea is dominant. Since RIR is a big floppy single comb, you could get some pea comb funk.

Have fun with the new chicks. Definitely post pics when they hatch and as they grow. :D

LofMc

Just for fun...I'll post below what I've been up to with my olive egger project. You can see the range of egg colors possible with mix breeds. :D
 

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