Colourful layers through cross breeding

[LottieEmily838]

I don’t know if this is the right place to post this but if it’s not please correct me.

My mum wants colourful layers so if anyone knows how to get them please help.

I have
A barnevelder rooster
A buff silkie rooster
A white silkie rooster
A white Pekin rooster
A lavender Pekin rooster
A Lemon Cuckoo Pekin rooster
And several Serama roosters

For hens I have
An Easter egger cream legbar
A brown laying barnevelder hen
An isa brown
A white laying Arucana
A white laying ayam cemani
A white laying silverudd
A splash silkie hen
A white silkie hen
A white Pekin hen
A buff Pekin hen
A chocolate frizzle Pekin hen
2 Lemon Cuckoo Pekin hens
And several Serama hens

What colours can I make with these?

I also have several Maran chicks, a silverudd and an olive egger chick.

 

[NatJ]

Are you wanting different colors of feathers on the chickens? Or different colors of eggs?

If you want to produce hens that lay well, you want to use a rooster from a breed that lays well. Looking at your list, the Barnevelder might be better than the other choices. His daughters should lay eggs that are medium brown to dark brown (darker from the hens that already lay darker eggs, lighter from the hens that lay white eggs.) From blue or green eggs, his daughters would produce green eggs or possibly brown eggs.

You also want to use hens that lay well. The isa brown hen is probably the best layer, with the other standard-sized hens probably being better layers than the bantams. If you know which hens lay which eggs, you can tell which ones are actually the better layers, and make a point of hatching from them.

It looks like there are no roosters with the blue egg gene, so the only way to get more hens laying blue or green eggs would be to hatch the ones that are blue or green. If the Barnevelder is the sire, daughters will lay green eggs, possibly dark enough green to be called "olive." If a white-egg rooster is the sire, daughters will lay blue eggs or maybe light green ones. In either case there is some chance of daughters laying brown or white eggs, depending on the genetics of the particular hen involved.

If the Olive Egger chick grows up to be a male, he could be used with any hens to produce some chicks that lay green eggs. There's a high chance that the olive egger will produce 50% chicks that lay green, 50% chicks that lay brown. But it could be 100% that lay green, or 100% that lay brown, depending on the exact genes the olive egger has. (Female olive egger is about the same as any other female that lays blue or green eggs.)

Regarding feather colors of chicks:

A barnevelder rooster
A buff silkie rooster
A white silkie rooster
A white Pekin rooster
A lavender Pekin rooster
A Lemon Cuckoo Pekin rooster
And several Serama roosters

The lavender Pekin rooster will produce black chicks with most of your hens, blue chicks with the splash Silkie hen, some white chicks and some black ones with the isa brown hen. If any hens are blue (Silverudds might be?), chicks will be black or blue. White hens are hard to predict, you could get white chicks or black ones or possibly something else like blue. For hens with white barring, sons will have white barring and daughters will not (barring will be in the lemon cuckoo, might be in the Legbar-mix Easter Egger.)

For the roosters that have both brown and black in their coloring (Barnevelder, Buff Silkie, maybe Seramas), many of your hens will give chicks that show brown and black. "Brown" might be dark red, light gold, or quite a few other shades. The isa brown will give some chicks that are brown & black, some that are brown & white. The Ayam Cemani and the chocolate Silkie will give black chicks, the splash Silkie will give blue chicks. The black & blue chicks may show leakage of other colors as they grow up (example: daughters will probably get gold or red in their breasts.)

The Lemon Cuckoo rooster will produce chicks like the brown & black roosters, except that all chicks will also have white barring across their feathers.

White roosters are hard to predict. There are some white roosters that produce only white chicks. There are some other white roosters that produce the same color chicks as the brown & black roosters. Some produce just black chicks. Other possibilities exist as well.


For other traits:
Frizzle will produce some frizzle chicks and some normal ones

Silkies will produce silkie feathers when bred to each other, but will produce normal feathers when bred to chickens with normal feathers.

Chickens with a crest will generally produce chicks with crests.
Chickens with feathered feet will usually produce chicks with feathered feet.
Chickens with extra toes will often produce chicks with extra toes (might be half the time, might be all of them.)
Chickens with muff/beard on the face may produce chicks with that (might be half of chicks, might be all of them.)

For the size of the chicks:
When the hatch, the chick size is determined by the egg, so small eggs produce small chicks and large eggs produce large chicks.

As they grow, chicks with two large parents will generally grow up to be large. Chicks with one large parent and one small parent are likely to be middle-sized when they grow up. Chicks with two small parents are most likely to be small when they grow up. Small father probably has more effect than small mother, due to specific details of one of the genes involved in size of chickens.