What will this mix produce?

[Gidget]

My friend has a flock of Barred Rock/Ameraucana mixes. The hens are all a beautiful blue/lavender color, so are the males but with a bit of barring. Should he let the hens hatch chicks? What will this make? For example right now the hens lay a beautiful large brown egg atleast 4 out of 7 days of the week, will their offspring lay and look as good as their parents? He'd basically be breeding an already mixed breed, and I have to say a number of people are interested in having hens that look/lay like his. (including me!)

A bit of information: The father(s) of his flock were Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas (Not EE's), the guy my friend got them from purposely bred them with Barred Rock hens.
Any other details needed, feel free to ask & thanks in advance!

 

[Ridgerunner]

If the eggs they are laying are brown, not green, those are not true Ameraucana roosters. True Ameraucanas are pure for the blue egg gene. When they are crossed with a brown egg laying breed like Barred Rock, the offspring will lay a green egg. That is simple genetics.

It is quite possible that person has been breeding chickens that look enough like Blue Wheaton Ameraucanas to win prizes at shows. The judges can only go by what they can see and they don't see the egg color that is laid. But those are not true Ameraucanas.

That's probably not important to you. What appears important is egg laying ability and appearance of the offspring of those crosses. Egg laying ability is inherited. The offspring should lay about as well as their parents. That one is easy.

However, when you breed the offspring of crosses you don't know what you will get appearance-wise. Chicken genetics can get really messy when you cross crosses. How different genes go together can tremendously alter the appearance. It's not just dominant versus non-dominant, but partial and incomplete dominance. You will probably get a lot more chicks that do not look like either parent than you get that look like them.

I’m not sure of the genetics in that Blue Wheaton. If he got all blue offspring, then the genetics that makes him blue is different than the Andalusian blue I'm familiar with. He would have to be Splash to get all blue offspring. With those genetics, he should have gotten half blue and half black offspring. I'm not going to guess what colors and patterns you are likely to get by crossing those offspring, but I feel very safe saying you will get a very wide range of colors and patterns. I think many of those will be very pretty. But most probably will not look like their parents.

 

[Gidget]

That is a great answer, thank you! Helped tons. Well, my friend is going to hatch their chicks! I'll post a picture of the rooster and of one of the hens.

Rooster, isn't he gorgeous?

Hen.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Looking at those, I think they are that Andalusian blue. I could be totally wrong, but I’ll base some comments on that assumption. Bear with me a bit.

They should be split extended black and Wheaton. Split means the gene pair will have one extended black gene and one Wheaton gene. So their offspring has a 1/4 chance of being pure Wheaton, 1/4 chance of being pure extended black, and a 1/2 chance of being split. With extended black being dominant over Wheaton, 3/4 of the chicks should have the black in control.

They would also be split for the blue gene with the same odds of being 1/4 pure for the blue gene, 1/4 pure for the not-blue gene, or 1/2 split. If the offspring is pure for the blue gene, it is what is called Splash. If splash is on the extended black, the chick is basically white but with nice black splashes painted on. If it is on Wheaton, it acts differently. I can't remember what that combination looks like. I think mainly white but with other possible colors on the neck and wings, depending in what else is there.

If the chick is pure for the not-blue gene, then the chick is black on an extended black background, whether pure or split for extended black. On Wheaton, it will depend on the other genes but the chick will not be black.

If the chick is split for the blue gene, then it will be the color of your photos on extended black whether pure or split. On Wheaton, I think the chick will have blue pattern feathers but the other colors will depend on what else is present.

The barred gene and the gold/silver gene are sex linked genes. Your rooster will be split for both those. Your hens will have the not-barred and the gold gene only. The hen only has one copy of these genes. That's why they are called sex links. The barred and silver are dominant over the not-barred and gold. Sometimes due to other genes, you cannot see those genes however.

About half the chicks will wind up barred, whether male or female. On the black and blue offspring you will be able to see the barring if it is there. On the others, you will probably see the barring on the pattern feathers but maybe not the base feathers, depending on what color you wind up with.

On the chicks with the extended black, whether pure or split, the gold and silver probably won't matter. You might get a few feathers leaking through, but the colors will basically be blue or black. But on the chicks pure for Wheaton, it will matter quite a bit. Some of those will be gold or red. I’m not sure which exact shade but some shade of red. And the pattern color could be blue, black, or even splash which will basically be white.

If you throw all these together, you can see that there is a very wide range of possible combinations and this is only looking at four gene pairs. There is no way to know which of these any one chick will come up with. That’s why I won’t even try to guess what you’ll see. I’ve hatched the offspring of crosses before. With the same mixed rooster and the same mixed hens, two different hatches looked totally different. With one hatch of four chicks, I had two red barred. With another hatch from the same parents, out of 17 chicks I got no red barred. You just don’t know what you will get. But it is sure fun seeing how they turn out.