What color is this?

[Guest]

I got these eggs which were from black & blue parents.

It hatched out looking like it was going to be black, but then got more & more white feathers, and now has red on its back.

I\'m guessing its not an accepted color, and somehow I got a crossed egg.  Any Ideas?

Will attempt to post pictures.

Thanks
Sterling

[Jean]

Looks like an EE to me.  I don\'t know what standard ameraucana colors that would cross to make a chicken with the black, red and white, it looks like a mized breed to me.

I would think a silver and a black would give you black and white.  A wheaten or blue wheaten and a black would give you black/bue with red, without white......

There are more knowledgable people on the board that know more about genetics than I do, but I would still say it is an EE.  It could have come from a blue and a black EE, but since they don\'t breed true to color, that is what you get.

I may be wrong also, call the people you got the eggs from.

Jean

[Mike Gilbert]

This bird is an easter egger.   He is a poor grade of silver, but also has autosomal red coming through.   It is real easy to get solid black females, but sometimes they carry odd genetics and pass them on to their male offspring.  Solid black or blue males are more difficult to achieve but will breed true when mated with females that carry similar genetics.

[John]

He is a poor grade of silver,

Or birchen me thinks.
Since he looked like a black as a chick he is most likely birchen.  I\'ve had many that hatched black and ended up feathering out like that in my bantam silver project for years.  It took awhile for me to realize what I had and to select for silvers.  They will have the chipmunk stripes as chicks.
He is young and has some good and bad traits from what I can see in the photo.  He may be a good male to use over a good brown red to produce brown reds.

[Mike Gilbert]

I\'m going to have to respectfully disagree.  This bird is homozygous for the silver gene with autosomal red showing up. Brown reds have to be gold, not silver.  Birchens are silver in place of gold.    Also, I don\'t see any sign of the breast lacing that is required for either birchen or brown red.  As a breeder, this bird is a waster in my opinion.

[Guest]

What you have there is hybrid or easter egger. He looks to be ER/ER or eb/eb,  S/S, Db/db+, Ml/ml+, Pg/pg+. The columbian like  gene Db is clearing some of the black from the body. He has some autosomal barring on the wings and that is due to the Pg, Db and Ml genes. The red on his shoulders is characteristic of silver Db males. The melanotic is adding the extra black color to the silver hackles.

Tim


Want to learn some chicken gentics go to the following:

http://home.earthlink.net/~100chickens/id5.html

[John]

Ja, I have to agree...he is a chicken.  

[Guest]

I did email the breeder, and she wrote that she bought som \"blacks\" from a breeder in Texas who told her they were from a long line of blacks....guess not.

She said she got the same thing in the eggs she hatched.
Oh well, I can\'t tell yet if its a hen or rooster, some days it looks like one and the next day it looks different.

I\'ll wait & see, if its a hen, I\'ll keep for eggs, if its a rooster, bye bye.

So, I\'m looking for a blue rooster, anyone near Central New York?

Thanks for your responses.

Sue

[John]

Mike, Tim and I have all referred to it as \"he\" and my vote is that it is a he due to his color pattern.

[Mike Gilbert]

Definitely a cockerel.   You don\'t see the autosomal red showing up on the wings like that in females.

[bantamhill]

[I did email the breeder, and she wrote that she bought som \"blacks\" from a breeder in Texas who told her they were from a long line of blacks....guess not. ]

Sue,

I would suggest that the breeder may need to look at both the blue and the black lines. While rare, when crossing two lines, recessive genes do show up from time to time and some unexpected plummage patterns may turn up. I have experienced this twice so far in my life as a breeder once with wheaten/blue wheaten large fowl that turned out looking like Columbians and just this season in my buff pens. I have had chicks hatch very dark brown and then feather out buff. In both instances I have been crossing lines that are from different breeders and are \"unrelated\".

Not knowing all of the particuluar\'s the situation, I would be willing to take the black birds from the Texas line and breed from them and bet that the offspring would be 100% black. I would take the blues the supplier has and breed from them and I bet the offspring would be blue, black, and splash . . . I suspect the birds may have been from drastically different lines of Ameraucana. It would be interesting to know where the blue birds came from.

The lesson learned is that even if phenotype(color) is correct, the genotype(genes) may be different from what one expected and produce undesirable offspring.

The reality of the situation is that sometimes unexpected things happen . . . much to our joy or disappointment.

[Guest]

Yes, I thought it was a rooster, but was hoping not, so I could at least use the eggs.

My problem now is, the 3 blacks and 1 blue are all from the same hatch, and I don\'t know if they are all from the breeders line, or some mixed with the texas line, or what....
And I think they are all hens.  None have a tail like that colorful guy in the picture and are solid colored.


Thanks for all the info...

Sue