If I had to choose between a bird from a BBS line or a self blue line, which in your opinion should I go with?
What about Wheaton lines?
Of those, I would choose BBS over self blue, and either of those over Wheaten.
Black, Blue, Splash, Lavender (self blue), Paint, and Ermine are all genetically black chickens, based on the gene E (Extended Black.) They are all supposed to show black, sometimes modified by something else, but never red/gold colors.
Wheaten is E^Wh (Wheaten) rather than E (Extended Black). Wheatens have large amounts of gold color. If you mix them into a line of Blacks or Ermines, you will probably get a lot of gold leakage, which you really do not want. Or you might get white leakage, but that is bad in Blacks and is not even good in Ermines because it can interfere with the amount of white/black coloring you are trying to get.
So I would avoid the Wheatens. (That especially goes for pure Wheatens, less strongly for Blacks that may carry Wheaten.)
Because blue is dominant and self blue (lavender) is recessive, I would go with BBS because it's easier to breed out (get rid of) a dominant gene than a recessive one. But birds from either line can work, and there are ways to get rid of recessive genes too.
But if blues turn out to have other genes that interfere with the Ermine pattern, then I would prefer a bird from self blue (lavender) lines. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the genes that make a "good" blue, to tell if they would be helpful or harmful in a line of Ermines, or if they would not matter.
Next question would be if the only birds bred were an Ermine and a black and blue popped up, how would you explain this? The Ermine was actually blue underneath the white? But would you see that in the ermine spots? Is it possible for a bird to have both black and blue? Maybe a special modified gene?
Blue Paint chickens exist. They have the same genetics as normal Paint chickens, plus the blue gene. So the "black" spots become blue.
I would expect the same thing to happen with Ermines, so Blue Ermine would probably be possible.
If someone bred Black with Ermine (black spots), and got chicks with blue, I would first check whether there were any mistakes in the parentage: did one egg come from a different breeding pen? Did a hen or rooster go visiting between pens? Was the hen isolated from wrong-color roosters for a long enough time before the eggs were collected?
If parentage mistakes are ruled out, I would then assume that either the Black parent or the Ermine parent was actually a dark Blue. Or whether the "Ermine" parent was actually a mis-identified Splash and not really Ermine at all.
If someone insists that none of those explanations could be true, I would reach one of two conclusions: either I am mixed up about what is genetically possible, or that person is mixed up about what is going on with their chickens. No matter which person is mixed up (me or them), it's not worth arguing at that point.
Then what if it's just ermine to ermine and things pop up?
That would depend on which "things" are popping up. If Blues are popping up, same explanations as above.
For other things, there are quite a few recessive genes that could be present in Ermine-colors chickens and show up in later generations. For example, if someone breeds Ermine to Wheaten and gets some Ermine chicks, breeding those chicks together should give Ermines and Blacks and Whites and Wheatens and Wheatens with white instead of the usual black in the tail, and maybe Silver Wheatens and Silver Wheatens with white instead of black in their tails (those ones will look pretty much white, but genetically different than the usual whites from Ermine x Ermine breedings.)
Right now I have a choice of purchasing hens that are 1- possibly split to self blue and or recessive white, no way to know which 2- possibly split to Wheaton and he said blue pops up in his line of Ermines (these are the breeders words not mine)
Are these birds black or are they Ermines?
I'm not sure which set of birds would be better. I might choose the ones that might carry self blue and/or recessive white, because they are less likely to have leakage of other colors-- but if you find nice birds with no leakage, being "possibly" split to Wheaten should not be a big deal either.
For any of them, you can set up test matings to see what they do or do not carrry.
To test mate a Black bird to see if it carries Self Blue (lavender): cross the Black bird to a Self Blue, and hatch about 8 chicks. If none are Self Blue, the Black is probably not carrying that gene. If any are Self Blue, you know for sure that the Black IS carrying that gene. All the test chicks are carrying Self Blue, so they are not welcome in your breeding program, but they might be welcome in a breeding program for Self Blues.
Use the same process for to test for other colors: breed to a recessive white if you are testing for recessive white, or breed to a wheaten if you are testing for wheaten.
To test Ermine birds (rather than testing black birds), you probably need to hatch about twice as many chicks, because some of the chicks will probably have enough white (Ermine pattern) that it is harder to tell what other colors or patterns they have.
Does any of this matter? Do I not need to worry about this?
It matters when planning your breeding program and which birds to test in which way. But it is possible to work with any of the birds you described, and with careful breeding and some test mating, you should be able to end up with a nice line of Ermines eventually. Which ones you choose will affect how easy or hard it is to do.
