Wheaten Maran cross question

[Urbanchicken62]

I lost my Wheatens to hawks so my plan was to restock one of my coops with Wheaten Marans this summer but found nothing locally and resorted to hatching eggs online which arrived dirty and some with what looked like green powdery mold on them. Ended up hatching only one out of 9 that ends up a little stud of a roo. I also have six Midnight Majesty Marans that came from Hoover Hatchery. I will eventually get some Wheaten hens but my question is what would the result be crossing the Wheaten Roo with the Black Maran cross hens?

 

[ChemicalchiCkns]

Cross questioning depends on how skillful your counsel is. (Throwaway line sorry...)

 

[NatJ]

The most obvious answer is that you would have Marans chicks with mixed-up colors
I think you would have lots of black and mostly-black chicks in the first generation cross. But they should have the other Marans characteristics--body shape, laying ability, egg color, etc.

I think if you were to cross daughters back to their father (the Wheaten rooster), you might get some wheatens among their offspring. It depends a bit on how many genes are different from one color to the other, and I don't know that for sure.

If you don't have a good source of Wheaten Marans, and if you're willing to eat a bunch of funny-colored Marans, I'd say go for it!

Or it might be faster to just buy some Wheatens next spring. I don't know if you were looking for birds from breeders or from hatcheries, but there are some hatcheries that sell them sometimes.