Laced Blue Ameraucana

[John]

if someone tells me how to post a pic.

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[Mike Gilbert]

As I said before, go to Feathersite.com, and search for Blue Andalusian.  That will give you an idea of the coloring we are attempting to achieve.   If you know what a \"good\" Silver Laced Wyandotte looks like (female), imagine gray and black instead of white and black.   But the genetics are quite different with the Wyandottes, so don\'t use them.   The white lobe is something that can be bred out over time as long as you are starting with Ameraucanas that have good red lobes.   Don\'t expect success with only a couple of generations - it takes time and perseverance to do a makeover like this.  And raising a lot of culls.

[IamBlessed]

I tried it again.  I had the picture too large earlier.
May crop a section of her to get a closer pic.

[IamBlessed]

Here is a zoomed in pic of the lacing on Lacy.

[IamBlessed]

This is our blue Ameraucana hen (have about 6 or 7 chicks from her and our Black cock).
This is what her lacing looks like.

[Christie Rhae]

This is our blue Ameraucana hen (have about 6 or 7 chicks from her and our Black cock).
This is what her lacing looks like.

Awesome pics!  Thanks for posting those.
The blue ameraucana pic is a good example of \"edging\".  No pattern genes appear to be present.
The pic of the Andalusian seems to have the full set of pattern genes according to the chart from chickengenetics.edelras.nl/  that I posted on my first post.

Breed her!

[IamBlessed]

We had ordered black Ameraucana and one of the chicks was light and ended up being a blue chick.  That is how we got her.
We have been breeding the Andalusian to get chicks out of her and so far only have 1 blue pullet and 1 blue cockerel.  We got 2 black and 2 splash also.  Our breeding was blue to blue because that is what we have that is old enough to breed.  Need to breed her again to the Andalusian cockerel but we may use the other hen we have for that.  They both have lacing, Lacy is just better.
Looking forward to starting this project soon.

[Christie Rhae]

Here are some tidbits of info I found today-

This one is from a marans club forum:
\"Extended black gene tends to produce black feather edging (not a lace) on blue birds-especially females.\"

This one is from Genetics of Chicken Colours
\"If you add other genes to an ER based chicken, such as Pattern gene, Columbian, Dark Brown and Melanotic you can get beautiful effects such as lacing, spangling etc.  If you were to add the same genes to an E based bird, nothing would happen, they have no effect.\"

As John Blehm stated on his E-locus thread... we really gotta get the blues from ER/ER.  Sigh....where to find ER/ER blues.....

[Christie Rhae]

Oh Emm Gee...
I just got my American Standard of Perfection 2010 in the mail today.  woohoo!
First thing I do is look up blue... I had no idea how lacking our blue ameraucana were.  The words...\"each feather having a sharply defined lacing of black\" screams blue andalusian.  
Oh we have so much work to do.  lol  
Again... so excited!!
 :p

[Mike Gilbert]

Now THIS is a project I can support.   Improving what we already have is something that needs doing in several of our recognized varieties, both large and bantam.   I will leave the development of new varieties to those who have more years left than I do.    To those who wish to work on new varieties I have a little advice from someone who has been there and done that.   Perseverance over time is key.  But don\'t discount the value of existing genetic knowledge, as it will save you a lot of time and resources while you are persevering.   Time is precious and should be well spent.   Wednesday of this week I attended the funeral of a long-time acquaintance in the poultry hobby, and a current district director of the American Bantam Association.   Somewhere along the line he lost hope and snapped.  I wish I had spent more time talking to him over the years about the sure hope we have in Christ, and less about chickens.  He was only 55.

[Jean]

Oh Emm Gee...
I just got my American Standard of Perfection 2010 in the mail today.  woohoo!
First thing I do is look up blue... I had no idea how lacking our blue ameraucana were.  The words...\"each feather having a sharply defined lacing of black\" screams blue andalusian.  
Oh we have so much work to do.  lol  
Again... so excited!!
 :p

I\'ve only seen one bird since I started showing that met this definition.  It was a beautiful sumatra shown by Tom Kernan  (I think he is one of our members too!!!) at Ohio.

When I think of the defintion I think of the pattern I see on the laced varieties of wyandottes.

[Beth C]

Mike: So sorry to hear of the loss of your friend. Really puts things in perspective...

[Christie Rhae]

I\'ve only seen one bird since I started showing that met this definition.  It was a beautiful sumatra shown by Tom Kernan  (I think he is one of our members too!!!) at Ohio.

When I think of the defintion I think of the pattern I see on the laced varieties of wyandottes.

Yeah that is awesome lacing.  One of the differences I see tho between the laced wyandottes and the blue description is
BLUE: \"main tail, main and lesser sickles, coverts.......distinctly laced with glossy black\"    
LACED WYANDOTTE: the main tail, sickles and coverts are lustrous, greenish black.  
So, no lacing on wyandottes tail.   Blue andalusians have lacing on every feather it seems..even the thighs are supposed to have laced feathers.  Which I don\'t even see on many pics of blue andalusians that I have seen here in the US.  The european andalusians have that.  
You know what they say about a little knowledge being dangerous?  lol... I might get dangerous with my new book.  Gonna drive everyone crazy quoting out of it.  

[vanalpaca]

Christie, I am interested in working on blue LF Ameraucana. Please cue me in on what you have figured out so far. I have chicks coming in this spring so I should have something to work with come next year.

Will just any Andalusian do, or is there a breeder out there that has some really good ones?

Also, don\'t know about the e genes yet. Takes a lot to get stuff into this aging brain.....so which birds on the Ameraucana have the ER/ER?? and what is that? Cheers, Bonnie in OHIO

[Christie Rhae]

Bonnie,
Have you read the E-locus thread that John Blehm started?  That is very informative and might help you understand that part better.

I am trying to write on this thread anything new that I figure out for the  benefit of anyone else that is also working on this.  

Are you waiting for Genetics of Chicken Colours?  I finally got mine and am half way through it.  The chicken genetics is broken down in a way that is easy to understand.  Things will make much more sense after you read that book.

The advice I was given is \"find the best laced andalusians and the best example of black ameraucana and hatch lots and lots of chicks\".  

I have not been able to find any black (or blue) birds that are based on ER/ER.  So that is a problem.  The andalusians most likely are ER/ER so I will have to select for that hopefully in the second generation.  The first generation will all be E/ER. I assume at this point that the birds with the best lacing will be the ER/ER ones.  It sounds like the lacing will work best on them.  By selecting the best hopefully one day I may have ER/ER based blues with lacing.