Ameraucana Breeders Club
The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Ameraucana Marketplace => Topic started by: cedarpondfarm on April 24, 2010, 10:09:57 AM
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I bred some EE hens to my AM roosters just to see what I would get. I don\'t plan on doing it again - was just curious. The hens were (loose interpretation) partridge, porcelain, silver and blue laced red. They had red bay eyes, muff/beard, blue legs, pea comb and laid a blue egg. Not great AM type but not too bad. I hatched 100 eggs from each rooster over the same set of hens.
Out of the black rooster\'s 100, I got nearly all black (which I expected) but a couple blue.
Out of the blue rooster\'s 100, I got nearly half black and half blue, a couple splash, a couple with black bodies and brown heads and a couple solid chocolate brown. I was surprised to get so many blues out of so many odd colored hens and no chipmunks.
I know little about genetics but wondered if that tells me anything about my 2 roosters\' gene pools?
In our area a lot of folks prefer EEs for hybid vigor and large eggs so I had no trouble selling the chicks. I kept a few just to see if the blues are really blues and see how the other 4 color out. But I gave all the EE buyers a free pair (best guess) of black Am chicks to get them started. Hope they will come back next spring for more of the real deal.
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Hi, i wonder how the chocolate brown chicks would have turned out. It seems that your Roos were certainly dominant. I am really unfamiliar about EE background. eliz
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Out of the black rooster\'s 100, I got nearly all black (which I expected) but a couple blue.
Out of the blue rooster\'s 100, I got nearly half black and half blue, a couple splash, a couple with black bodies and brown heads and a couple solid chocolate brown. I was surprised to get so many blues out of so many odd colored hens and no chipmunks.
I kept a few just to see if the blues are really blues and see how the other 4 color out.
From the first (black) rooster, he is most likely E (extended black) or E>R (birchen with melanizers). The \"blues\" you got from this rooster resulted from the BL gene in the females he was mated with, as he has no ability to transmit blue.
From the second (blue) rooster, same genetics with the addition of Bl, which the first rooster did not have. When mated with non-blue females he would be expected to throw blue in about half his chicks. Had he been a splash, he would have transmitted Bl to all of them.
Very few if any males from these matings are likely to remain all black or all blue. Most will develop off-color feathers in their head, hackles, perhaps backs and wings as well. More of the females will remain one solid color, but they will likely transmit off-coloring to their male offspring. You probably have no idea how difficult it was to breed up solid black and solid blue males from the original easter egger stock, which is why outcrosses to other breeds became necessary.
Your brown chicks probably inherited from their mothers the e>b (brown) gene instead of E or E>R. So they are pretty much all definitely hybrids, genetically, despite their current chick down color. They will not breed true to color.
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Thanks Mike, that is more or less what I thought but didn\'t know the correct genetic language.
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In our area a lot of folks prefer EEs for hybid vigor and large eggs so I had no trouble selling the chicks. I kept a few just to see if the blues are really blues and see how the other 4 color out. But I gave all the EE buyers a free pair (best guess) of black Am chicks to get them started. Hope they will come back next spring for more of the real deal.
You know, there are a lot of people around here that feel the same way. There are a group of three men that breed for the biggest EE\'s they can get. I know one guy pretty good and he fills me in on what the other two are working on. Both of these other guys have real Ameraucanas too, but they have these EE\'s that people go gaga over. I had a HUGE barred Ameraucana cross (EE) that I took to a chicken meetup/swap. The guy that bought him got an offer on him before he could leave, and I had people coming over to ask where the bird went and if I had more. Later someone called the guy that bought him and made him an offer on the bird so he went ahead and let him go.....I just wonder what he paid. Then that guy called me and asked if I was going to repeat the breeding. Crazy! I\'m almost tempted, lol!
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Sherry, A lot of people around here didn\'t know the difference between the EEs and the AMs until I explained it. Even so, many still wanted EEs \"like granny used to have\" - rainbow colors, big and fat, large eggs. Oh, and broody!
I have 3 nice AM hens that lay fairly large eggs with good blue color so thought I would start a side project for bigger breasts and bigger eggs in my AMs. Then I can hopefully integrate those traits into my best type and color. I have lots of patience and some extra time. Just not enough know-how.
In the fall, I will know which young roos are the sons of these big egg hens so thought that would be a good cross to start with.
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Improving breast size is an excellent goal, and egg size too of course. One reason I like my d\'Uccles so much is that they\'re so little but they have such solid meaty breasts, no sharp keel bones sticking out.
One of the Lavender boys I got from John is nice and chesty. Of course, he\'s recently become a papa, so maybe part of it is pride (as well as a full crop)! He\'s a little bit under size, but he\'s heavy and solid. I sure hope he passes this on.
(http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/8470/img94134.jpg)
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Sherry, your boy is very nice. I love a chicken with width between the legs and a broad chest. Roos and hens too.
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Hi, did receive chicks from John this year. 1/2 LF black & 1/2 LF lavender.
I found it interesting that the lavs with identical conditions as the blacks have grown 1/2 again in size to the blacks.
Realize that as birds are bred from other species and the best of their stock that an Ameraucana isn\'t always the same across the board.
Still learnin, eliz
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Found it interesting that the lavs with identical conditions as the blacks have grown 1/2 again in size to the blacks.
Realize that as birds are bred from other species and the best of their stock that an Ameraucana isn\'t always the same across the board.
You didn\'t say how old the chicks are, but I suspect the faster growth of the lavenders may be at least partially attributable to hybrid vigor. The blacks may very well catch up in time, but keep us posted. As we work with different lines over a period of many years we all need to be cognizant of the potential hazards of inbreeding depression. Thanks.
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In the breeding pen where my rooster was bred by a different breeder than the hens were (although distantly related), the chicks hatched more vigorously and have grown faster than the other 2 pens where the roosters and hens came from the same breeder and were more closely related. I am curious to see if it all equals out in the end.