brown leghorn rooster and white leghorn

[pittmanbirds]

what would I get I crossed a brown leghorn rooster and a white leghorn hen, barred rock hen, rhode island red hen. thank you

 

[Lady of McCamley]

BL x WL....yellow/white down chicks both genders. Adults with possibly some flecking and brown bleed through here and there. WL is dominant white. Hens will lay white eggs.

BL x BR hen....sex links. Black down on girls, boys black down with white head dot. May have brown leakage, but dot should still be clear to sex at hatch. Hens will lay a light brown egg.

BL x RIR....red down chicks, chipmunk pattern, both genders. Red with possibly some patridging leakage as adults. Hens will lay a light brown egg.

All will be awesome layers. Only the leghorn to leghorn crossing will likely be flighty. The BR and RIR blood will calm the leghorn.

Should be awesome crosses for hardy, prolific hybrid layers that will mature early and lay well. Roosters should be obvious by 6 weeks for the non-sex linked mixes.

Happy hatching!

LofMc

PS: Should add that all will be medium weight birds not particularly good for meat or dual. The Leghorn just doesn't have enough body weight for good processing. The BL/RIR and the BL/BR will be better than the Leghorn, but still not as heavy as the BR or RIR. You will get excellent layers but not really meat birds.

 

[pittmanbirds]

Ok thank you for the help what about brown leghorns rooster breeds buff orphington, and black laced golden Wyandotte

 

[donrae]

x2 on Lady's post.

I put a Brown Leghorn rooster over my mixed bag of pure hatchery birds probably a decade ago. I noticed increased production for several generations, it was a great cross. Not so great for the cockerels if you plan to eat them, there's just not much meat there. But I was looking more for eggs, and eggs I got!

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Both those combinations will produce something closer to a dual purpose bird. The Leghorn blood should increase the laying of the BO blood (which is dual purpose, not a prolific layer but heavy enough for meat without being a true meat bird), but you will not get the prolific laying of the Leghorn as the BO blood will slow it down.

Wyandotte is likewise. A dual purpose bird if you've got good stock. The Leghorn blood should improve the laying quality of the offspring and the Wyandotte blood should improve the body type.

Those are generalities of course. Sometimes the genetics drags things to one end or the other, but you should hit a nice middle ground resulting in a fairly dual purpose bird.

As to chicks and adults:
BL x BO hen, buff gold chicks, both genders, possibly some light striping. Adults will be buff with some possible brown or partridge bleed through. I should think a very light cream egg as my BO's have always laid a light tint...crosses from this should likely lay almost a cream some maybe almost white.

BL x Wyandotte (I am assuming you mean Gold Laced Wyandotte, not Black Laced Gold?) You will likely get rosecombs on all chicks, or almost all depending if your Wyandotte is solid for rosecomb (single is a default in Wyandotte). Otherwise some chicks may produce leghorn single combs...and you might see some funk combs. Rosecombs can mean better combs for cold weather vs. the large Leghorn comb. Chicks will likely be a brownish chipmunk, multi-colored, both genders. Adults will take on a partridging/laced...not fully laced. Should be very pretty birds. Should lay a light brown egg, possibly lighter cream, depending upon the strain of Wyandotte.


All the options you've presented should also produce yellow or light yellow shanks (leg color is trickier) with light colored skin. Your BL/BR could end up with some grey legs (that crops up with barreds I find...even with strong yellow on the rooster).

If you are attempting dual purpose for egg laying and meat producing. This is your best bet with the BL over BO or Wy.

Here's a nice genetic breedbook that you can run patterns through, which I find is pretty accurate. I've seen a number of the crosses and/or done them, so I've seen results from it.
http://www.breedbook.org/?action=geneticscalculator&tab=CHICKEN

Backyard mixes are fun to do and can be very hardy, prolific birds. I highly recommend if you are breeding for sustainability, do NOT breed from birds that became sick and you nursed back to health. Only use strong, resilient stock. Cull, eat or re-home, or keep as non-breeding pets those that are not naturally resistant. (However it is generally best to simply cull non-thrifty types as they usually act as vectors of disease to the rest of the flock.)

Always use your best stock to breed. Cull anything (eat or re-home) that doesn't meet your goals. The best way to continue to improve your goals is to line breed daughters back to the father (assuming he is a good type) for several generations using the best daughters. THEN you can begin to take from different generations of siblings, best stock. Don't breed siblings together too soon. Don't cross breed too many types, you simply create a chaos of genes with uncontrolled results. In controlled breeding, especially in line breeding back to the main sire, your chicks will take on more and more of the father's type. If you desire to develop more of the hybrid type, take the best sibling from different generations and begin to breed best types.

Many breeders keep 2 separate lines, developed originally through line breeding, then mate those 2 lines after development to secure the health and type of their bird.


....or just let the rooster run among the hens (if you have one) and only set eggs from the best females. Retire the rooster for another type if you want to develop different traits or add new blood. Roosters are generally very cheap to pick up as there is almost always more supply than demand. The cheapest way to improve a flock is to buy a good quality rooster.

Good luck on your breeding program.

LofMc

 

[pittmanbirds]

I feel stupid but I'm trying to use that calculator buy not sure as to what to put down for the following

Buff orphington
Black jersey giants
Wyandotte
Barrera rock
Rhode Island reds

Can some one tell me what they are classified under please

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I feel stupid but I'm trying to use that calculator buy not sure as to what to put down for the following

Buff orphington
Black jersey giants
Wyandotte
Barrera rock
Rhode Island reds

Can some one tell me what they are classified under please

BO is a buff colored bird, so buff
Black Jersey Giants, black
Wyandotte will depend upon the coloring, I used Gold Laced (Black Tail) for it, but I know the GLW is more complicated than this basic calculator
I don't know what a Barrera Rock is...do you mean Barred Rock? That is Barred/Cuckoo
RIR are red birds

Oh...and I set your Brown Leghorn Rooster as Partridge (Light Brown)...close enough for general purpose.

Choose the feather color type for the Male rooster then choose for the Female hen....the link I gave you is the simplified calculator so most color types are there but you won't get the trickier types completely accurately, like for the GLW.

There is an advanced calculator, but you have to set each feather geno type, and that gets pretty complicated, so for the basic breeds this basic calculator works and works pretty well.

I'm still getting my head wrapped around feather pattern genetics, but that basic calculator is a good starting place.

Also, this series by Scratch Cradle will also help a lot.
https://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/gms7-plumage-pigments/

I linked the plummage pigments since that is what you are most concerned with at this point, but start reading at the mini-series here in the order given by Scratch Cradle:
https://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/genetics-mini-series/

Hope all that helps.
LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Oh...and the calculator usually gives little graphics of the results, but sometimes the little icon doesn't show up...just read the bottom line of each result category. You'll see the genetic coding but also the type...such as red based bird or black unibody.

Good luck
LofMc

 

[summerb123]

 

[drumstick diva]