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egg color

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Guest:
QUESTION!  
If ya\'ll keep breeding for plumage colors derived from brown egg laying breeds won\'t this just reinforce the green egg problem?
Lets not lose sight of what makes this breed unique... BLUE not green eggs!

bantamhill:
I take the very simple approach to egg shell color genetics when working with a new variety, ie lavender/self blue.

So for my cross of black Ameraucana x Old English lavender last year I chose my very best type and egg shell color hens and cocks for the cross. The results have been good . . . a slightly turqois egg shell. In the simplest genetics each bird has one blue gene and one off white gene.

This year I am taking this generation and mating them together. In theory pullets should lay 25% should be off white, 50% turqois, and 25% sky blue . . . so I must raise a good number of offspring. I plan to keep all of the pullets until maturity and will breed the sky blue layers back to a black Ameraucana cock of known egg shell genetics so that I have the cleanest egg shell genes in the lavendar plummage.

Michael

Guest:
I use birds that lay eggs with white shells to do my out crossing.  If you have to use a brown egg shell layer, you can use a white egg layer to eliminate the brown. You make a cross with a white egg layer then back cross the F1 to a parent (P generation).   In two generations I have eliminated any brown that was in the original parent. My work may be  anecdotal but  it works for me.

Rooster

bantamhill:
Rooster,

That is a great strategy!

Bantam

John:

--- Quote ---If you have to use a brown egg shell layer, you can use a white egg layer to eliminate the brown.
--- End quote ---

Very interesting.  Do you think it was because the white egg laying bird didn\'t have the color modifying genes, that many brown egg layers do.  If so and if the modifying genes are recessive it seems like there is a possibility that some could show up again in future generations.
???

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