My apologies to everyone for posting so much. I
am not trying to dominate ... i'm just overly
enthusiastic.

In our blue egg project (about which I have posted
way too much), we are producing the F2
generation now. We have some as old as 8
weeks and some that are hatching as I type this.
We have more than a hundred F2 progeny (I don't
know how many) and two incubators full yet to
hatch. Then, we start selecting for the F3
generation when all the F2s are well into lay
sometime in early summer 2002.

We have another blue/grey chick in the F2
generation of this project... just now hatched (last
night). This is the second one we have in the F2
generation. One is never really sure of all the
genetics in any one bird, but we know our
Ameraucana sire has lavender. We may also have
lav in either our Araucana line or our Leghorn line,
but we don't know.

lav is recessive and I am surprised to have a
second lavender chick so soon (particularly if we
have only one member of the P generation with the
gene).

This reminds me of a question that Barry asked
almost two years ago on the mustard board. Barry
was in the military at that time and stationed in
Hawaii, where by the way there is a substantial
wild chicken population. Barry asked what 'colors'
or patterns in the White Leghorn are masked in
White Leghorns by the combination of I/I E/E silver
and sex-linked barring. That's probably anyone's
guess ... there may be a number of genes present
that one never sees in the phenotype.

But, Barry's question is now my question ... I am
really wondering now what other genes our
Leghorn line has that are invisible in the
phenotype. There are many genes that they could
have that don't express in the White Leghorn
phenotype and still be considered full-fledged
White Leghorns.

From the F2 that we did between Red Junglefowl and one White Leghorn line. Our White Leghorns were birchin (ER) Sexlinked silver (S) barred (B) and Id. They were segregating (not homozygous) for recessive mottling (mo) and blue (Bl). They also had a dominant diluter of red segregating. No obvious columbian restrictors were seen in the F2, but all the F1 males and many of the F2 males had quite a bit of red in the breast. I can't say more than this because all the males were barred in both generations.

We have some babies in the F2 generation that
could be either barred or mottled. I made a feeble
post about this earlier as 'types of barring' , but I
was thinking that some of them may even be
mottled. When my computers come back, I will
post some pictures.... we have some very sharply
barred chickes, some fuzzy barring and some that
may even be mottling. I had no idea that all this
could come out of the White Leghorns!

The blue/grey chicks are very interesting to me as it
would be a nice novelty to have a line of blue
chickens that lay blue eggs....

OK ... hmmm... if my White Leghorns are heteros
for blue, Bl, as your were, Rokimoto.... I will do the
calculation and see what fraction of my 'blackies'
(F2 babies with no dominant white) that should be
blue ... give me a few minutes ....

Info, your absolutely right about blue birds laying blue eggs. I want to be the first in line if you ever have any to sell. That would be so cool!....

Thank you for your post, Hannah. I was calculating
the probability of getting blue birds by the F2
generation, assuming (as Rokimoto mentioned)
that I have White Leghorns with the blue gene.

The P generation ("P" for parent) is: Araucana
(E/E, i+ / i+, bl+ / bl+) and White Leghorn (E/E, I / I
and Bl,bl ... assuming blue heterozygotes as
Rokimoto mentioned).

No blue chicks show up in the F1 generation
because they are all heterozygous for dominant
white, I. However, the F1 generation is 50%
heterozygous for blue and 50% lacking blue. The
blue doesn't express because all the F1 birds are
white (Our F1 generation actually didn't quite
happen this way. We got one F1 pullet that is
black. I attribute this to the fact that dominant white
is, in reality, incompletely dominant).

The F2 generation in our project is progeny of the
F1 birds and so 25% are homozygous for
dominant white, 50% are heterozygous for
dominant white and 25 % are 'blackies" ... black or
modified black chicks. These statistics for the F2
generation are holding up very well ... amazingly,
almost all of the chicks that are heterozygous for
dominant white have black spots .... the incubator
that hatched last night had the same thing.

Of the 25% of the F2 generation that are "blackies"
(lacking dominant white), half of should be
heterozygous for blue, Bl.... and they should grow
up to be blue. 3/8 of the blackie F2s will be lacking
in blue (homozygous for bl+), and 1/8 of them will
be homozygous for blue, Bl and should grow up to
be splash rather than blue.

So, 1/8 of my F2 generation should be blue chicks,
and 1/32 of my F2 generation should be slash. So,
5/32 of my F2 generation chicks should
demonstrate blue down. These statistics are not
holding up, but that may just mean that not all of
my White Leghorn dams are carrying blue, Bl. As it
stands now, I estimate that my F2 generation is
about 2% blue-down chicks.

It would be really neat to have blue birds that lay
blue eggs!

Is it that unusual? I have 2 blue and buff ameracauna's that lay blue eggs and a blue rooster that will be sire to this years ameracaunas here.

Some of our White Leghorns did not have blue. Some were heterozygous and segregated the allele.

One highly inbred White Leghorn line +99% that we crossed into our Smokys had blue. All animals of this inbred line would be expected to be homozygous for blue, but we only used one male.

The commercial Leghorns that you used were probably the result of a 4 way cross (4 different grandparent lines), so if you have blue some birds may have it and even be homozygous for it, but others may not have blue.

Mina:

Your Blue X Blue matings will produce the 1:2:1 ratio of black: blue: splash (bl+bl+ : Blbl+: BlBl). The Blue X buff will likely produce a 1:1 ratio of blue : black. This depends on the purity of the blue male. If he is a cross all bets are off, but if he is EE Blbl+ all his progeny will inherit dominant black (E) and half will inherit blue (Bl) and half will inherit normal (bl+). If he is a hybrid you can get some pretty odd birds crossing him to buff.

Mina, I believe we are talking about two different
things. You may well have lav or blue
Ameraucanas.... and they will lay blue/green eggs.

I have a breeding project in which we are
developing a blue laying line. The dams in the P
generation are all White Leghorns.

The surprising thing to us was that some of our
White Leghorns evidently are carrying blue genes,
Bl, as we are getting blue chicks in our F2
generation.

We may well concentrate some effort into the blue
birds which are participating in our blue egg
project.

To make a long story short, Mina, we are trying to
develop a better blue egg and we may have some
blue birds naturally arising in this project. I am
aware that tthere are birds out there with blue
genes (and pea combs) that lay (vaguely) blue
eggs.

I'm still interested in how this all turns out for you Info, REAL interested. I'm just a backyard poultry keeper (on my one little acre of paradise). The main reason I got into poultry at all was the colored eggs. I got interested in Sultans because I lucked out and got a pair. But Araucanas are my thing for sure.

Mina, I too have a blue and buff Ameracauna. She lays a green egg. But then again, when you compare hers to another pullet I have that also lays green, her eggs are about 2 shades to the blue.

Still, it's all very interesting. Can't wait to find out what color your little blue chicks lay Info.

Friends of mine and I all have blue birds that lay blue eggs. I've had generations of them and don't think they are rare at all. I'm working mostly with blue-egg laying Silkies, but not naked necks like on David's blue egg page. I like the hackle feathers too much (especially on Frizzles) to work with naked necks.

Uncle Bud , Are your blue eggs blue blue or greenish? And are they silkies or crosses. If silkies, I would be ivterested in some eggs to hatch. Where did your blue eggs originate.

I started with blue-green egg laying Ameraucana pullets bred to pure Silkie roosters. I saved only the silkie cross pullets that layed blue or green eggs and breed to another pure Silkie rooster. Every year I do the same preserving the blue egg gene (O) through the pullet side and adding more and more Silkie qualities through the rooster side; therefore my birds are all either heterozygous for blue egg or homozygous for non-blue egg. If I ever get a generation that has all the Silkie qualities like I want, I'll breed them together and get 1/4 pure for blue egg-laying.

I have found that if I introduce the blue-egg gene (O) to a breed that normally lays a brown egg (eg. Rhode Island Red), I get an army green egg. If I introduce O gene to a breed that normally lays a clean white egg, I get blue eggs.

Does anyone know what happens when the blue egg gene is introduced into the chocolate egg-laying breeds like Maran or Welsummer?