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Post by johno on Jan 22, 2011 9:30:26 GMT -5
Okay, chicken experts: I have a question or two about cross breeding. The goal is to get green eggs from an Ameraucana cross. I have an Ameraucana hen, and access to Amer. roosters. What I'd like to do is breed the Brown Leghorn hen to the Amer. rooster and see if the offspring lay green eggs (larger and more frequently). I'm sure the information is out there, somewhere, but numerous searches have been fruitless.
My Amer. and B. Leghorn hens have almost identical markings, which happen to be excellent camouflage. They are both wary... They have good survival traits for foraging. We've been giving eggs to my wife's co-workers to test the market by their reactions. Green eggs definitely have a niche, although, of course, brown eggs are the favorites. I think green eggs from a Leghorn cross would be fantastic.
So, the question is, can I get them from a first generation cross? Does it matter which breed is the male and which is the female?
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Post by johno on Jan 22, 2011 10:30:22 GMT -5
Brown Leghorn hen  |
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Post by gallorojo on Jan 22, 2011 10:43:53 GMT -5
While I would not classify myself as a chicken expert ,I am confident that I can answer this question for you. ;D
The blue egg gene is dominant. It is not sex-linked, so, it does not matter which parent carries the blue egg gene. A true, pure bred Ameraucana or Araucana should lay light blue to blue green eggs. Hatcheries do not offer pure bred Blue egg layers, they offer mixed breeds with the blue egg gene, properly known as Easter Eggers. When you cross a PURE blue egger with white egger, you will get all light blue eggs-the blue is dominant to the white. When you cross a PURE blue egger to a light brown egger, you will get all light green eggs. When you cross a PURE blue egger to a dark brown egger, you will get all dak green eggs, known as 'olive eggs". When you start crossing Easter Eggers with other breeds, the colors can be difficult to predict.
In your example, IF your Ameraucanas are pure bred blue eggers, you should expect to get all light blue eggs. If your Ameraucanas are actually hatchery Easter Eggers, and, if they lay green eggs, you will get all light green eggs. The only effect the white egg parent will have on the egg color of the offspring is to dilute it somewhat.
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Post by johno on Jan 22, 2011 11:10:30 GMT -5
Wow, that's unexpected good news! Thank you gallorojo. That opens even more possibilities within my small flock.
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Post by johno on Jan 22, 2011 11:29:48 GMT -5
Ameraucana hen  |
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Post by johno on Jan 22, 2011 11:33:00 GMT -5
A typical days worth of eggs in January  You can see the color of the Amer. egg in the top right. I call them green, but I suppose it looks bluish. We males tend to disagree on some colors due to degrees of color-blindness... I think it looks bluer on the screen. |
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Post by gallorojo on Jan 22, 2011 14:47:08 GMT -5
Based on your picture, you will get light blue eggs. You are right, that none of the eggs will really be "blue", there is always some element of green in there. Your birds look healthy, very nice pictures! Good luck with your project!!
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Post by lavandulagirl on Jan 22, 2011 20:25:57 GMT -5
Johno - I have read that the blue egg gene is closely connected to the comb, as well. In that the single comb of the leghorn is NOT a blue egg comb, but the small (rose? I don't remember the name) comb of the arucauna is connected to blue comb. The hen we recently lost to old age was technically an easter egger, and looked VERY much like a Americauna, with the cheek tufts, coloring, stance, etc, but had a single comb, and laid peachy-brown speckled eggs. Cool looking, certainly, but not blue or green. Let me see if I can find, in all my stuff, the article that said this comb-link idea in it.
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Post by lavandulagirl on Jan 22, 2011 20:37:02 GMT -5
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Post by gallorojo on Jan 23, 2011 9:51:07 GMT -5
Those are some good links. If you read the BYC link, you can see that it is possible to have a single comb blue egg layer, it's just highly unlikely. The other note i would make is that pea comb is dominant to the leghorn single comb, so, all of the f1 crosses should have the pea comb, and most( 97%) will also have the blue egg gene. You can also have a pea comb brown or white egg layer. I have quite a few of those myself!!
Very good links, gracias! ;D
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Post by flowerpower on Jan 25, 2011 7:00:31 GMT -5
The hen we recently lost to old age was technically an easter egger, and looked VERY much like a Americauna, How old was the hen? I tought your birds were pretty young. Or did you buy that one as an adult? |
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Post by lavandulagirl on Jan 25, 2011 10:52:07 GMT -5
FP - I bought a group of 5 hens three years ago, from a guy who had an egg business. One was not quite point-of-lay, yet, but the rest were supposed to be in their 2nd season. This particular hen, (who looked exactly like Johno's Amerucauna, except with a single comb by the way - freaky!) Was probably the oldest of the bunch when I got her - perhaps as old as 3 or 4 years. She was a good egg layer at first, but last year really only gave us a couple eggs a week. Really she probably died as a result of an issue with her oviduct, (we started getting quite a few "fart eggs" from her) but she was never sickly except one time, when she may have eaten something bad, and never egg bound. Since oviduct issues like hers often come with age, and there was no illness that ran through the whole group, we chalked it up to an ageing issue. Just before Thanksgiving, she slowed way down, and one day we found her dead in the coop. 
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Post by flowerpower on Jan 26, 2011 7:58:31 GMT -5
I remember when you got the birds from that farm. You have been on the west coast for 3 yrs already? Wow, it doesn't seem that long.
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Post by mybighair on Jan 26, 2011 13:51:25 GMT -5
I've made this cross myself for the very same reasons as johno.
I did find that the F1 Leghorn X Araucana hade lighter blue eggs than the pure Araucana, but the depth of colour can be recovered in some of the F2 by crossing the F1 together.
With regards to egg production, it is better to use the Leghorn as the male parent as egg production is more heavily influenced by the male. When breeding for improved egg production you should select your rooster from the best eggs laying hen from the best laying lines available to you.
If you really want to up production in your line you can carry out successive back crosses to the leghorn line using the pea comb as an indicator for the presence of the O gene (blue egg gene) because, as lavandulagirl stated, the two traits are linked.
The way I went about it was to put a good leghorn rooster to my best laying Araucan hen, then put him back to the best (layers) of his daughters. I then selected the best coloured eggs from that pen for hatching.
The F2 chicks from that hatch were split roughly 50/50 for pea/strait comb, the pea comb chicks were kept for further breeding.
I then took two F2 males with the best pea comb's and put them to good leghorn hens from the first line, and put best of the F2 pea combed hens to a good rooster from another good egg line. I then hatched the leghorn X F2 and the bluest of the F2 X leghorn eggs to get my F3 (being sure to hatch them separately)
Then it was a case of putting good pea combed F3 roosters from the leghorn hens to good pea combed F3 hens from the F2 hens to get the F4.
The F4 birds were test mated to leghorns. Roosters and hens that produced all pea combed offspring were kept. The hens were also selected for egg colour and production.
These birds were then paired up and line bred selecting first for vigour (essential when line breeding), then production, egg size and colour.
It was a lot of work but I enjoyed doing it and produced some nice birds.
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Post by johno on May 4, 2011 17:04:07 GMT -5
That' seems like a lot of record-keeping, but I'm sure it paid off with excellent results! I kept a rooster with a pea-comb with all the hens for about a month, and let them keep all their eggs. I'm letting nature take its course. So far, there are two hatchlings: i392.photobucket.com/albums/pp10/johnosgarden/100_1394.jpgI found out later that the rooster's background is in question. Hopefully he was at least part Ameraucana ad has the blue egg genes... |
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