I have a very small flock of BBS (2 black hens, 7 blue hens, and 2 splash cockerals). Some of my birds I quite like, others should be moved on as pet quality. I plan to put my best cockeral with 2 or 3 of my best hens (blues) and collect those eggs for my next years grow outs. Based on the space I have, I can only keep about 10-12 chicks out of this mating to grow out until next spring (maybe a few more if I get rid of a couple more hens).
From this years mating, I hope to improve overall balance and depth of chest in the hens. I expect that crossing splash to blue will leave me with washed out blues/splash without a lot of lacing. Most of my stock has somewhat pinched tails, so I would hope to improve that, as well as colour, in the following year.
What would be my next steps? Do I keep a cockeral and breed him back to the same 3 hens, or keep a couple hens and breed them back to the sire? Or do I find a cockeral from a new source?
It sounds like you are doing a good job narrowing down your birds Penny. I have always had a lot better luck making progress from season to season by narrowing my birds down to 2-3 of the best trios or quads rather than keeping larger pens that contain lesser quality birds.
It sounds like you are selecting for type first and foremost and have outlined good breeding goals!
The blue gene (Bl) is a diluting gene. It is known as an autosomal incomplete dominant gene. Incomplete dominance means that one allele is not completely expressed (or dominant) over the allele that it is paired with. This results in a phenotype that is a combination of both alleles. This explains why blue chicks produced in a blue, black and splash breeding pen are not all the exact same shade of blue. Some may be lighter in color and others may be darker in color due to the incomplete dominance. Pretty neat!
In its heterozygous form (one copy of the Bl gene, known as Bl/bl+), black feathers are diluted to create blue plumage. In its homozygous form (two copies of the Bl gene, known as Bl/Bl), black feathers are diluted to create splash plumage.
There are three genes involved in creating the black single lacing on a blue Ameraucana. Those three genes are the Pattern gene (Pg), Melanotic gene (MI) and Columbian gene (Co). Advice will vary from one breeder to the next so hopefully others that work with blue, black and splash will chime in as well, but naturally, one of the ways to continually maintain good lacing in your breeding program is to select for good lacing in breeding stock when narrowing them down.
Many breeders will breed father to daughter and/or son to mother if necessary. There are several breeding styles available. Always keep the best birds available while also maintaining the most genetic diversity. Keep in mind that you can use breeding birds for more than one season and sometimes several seasons if necessary. Each year, compare that season’s grow outs with your current breeding stock. Keep the best each time, whether that be the first-year breeding hen or the pullet produced from that year’s hatches. You don't necessarily have to keep the offspring produced just because they are the youngest. Always keep the best available. If you find that a particular mating produces excellent quality offspring, you can use that mating for several seasons. That is why it is so important to track your birds and to keep up with which matings are producing what.
In good breeding programs, breeders hope for around 50% to be breeding quality and around 10-25% to be show quality. Sometimes the averages are better and sometimes they are worse. Good luck and keep us posted on how your birds do!