Green eggs and beards rooster selecting

[Slothinc]

I do not agree. Since the blue eggshell gene is dominant she may have only one blue eggshell gene at that gene pair. She will always lay a blue or green egg. But unless she has two blue eggshell genes at that gene pair it is 50-50 that she will pass that blue eggshell gene down to any individual chick. So there is a chance he carries a blue eggshell gene but not a guarantee.

It's still sound advice. I only hatched blue or green eggs and kept my replacement hens and rooster from them each year. I got lucky and within three generations every hen was laying a blue or green egg. If the Blue eggshell gene were a recessive gene it would be easy. But it is a dominant gene so the "non-blue" can hide from you.

Ooooh, you’re so right! Sorry @Radrussie I got confused there! Listen to @Ridgerunner on this one!

So yes if he came out of a blue/green egg and you don’t know if the hen is homozygous for that gene, you’ll potentially have a boy with zero blue egg genes. I’d just encourage you to keep track of every generation. Write down who the parents are as best as you can and who hatched out of which color. I think you can still work towards having all blue/green layers! After you hatch eggs from a rooster if you keep some of his daughters and see what color they lay, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether or not he carried blue. This is a very fun project!

 

[Radrussie]

I do not agree. Since the blue eggshell gene is dominant she may have only one blue eggshell gene at that gene pair. She will always lay a blue or green egg. But unless she has two blue eggshell genes at that gene pair it is 50-50 that she will pass that blue eggshell gene down to any individual chick. So there is a chance he carries a blue eggshell gene but not a guarantee.

It's still sound advice. I only hatched blue or green eggs and kept my replacement hens and rooster from them each year. I got lucky and within three generations every hen was laying a blue or green egg. If the Blue eggshell gene were a recessive gene it would be easy. But it is a dominant gene so the "non-blue" can hide from you.

Would be very happy With a similar outcome. Honestly would just like more colour's than not colored. Would a rooster hatched from a very blue egg change anything

 

[Radrussie]

Ooooh, you’re so right! Sorry @Radrussie I got confused there! Listen to @Ridgerunner on this one!

So yes if he came out of a blue/green egg and you don’t know if the hen is homozygous for that gene, you’ll potentially have a boy with zero blue egg genes. I’d just encourage you to keep track of every generation. Write down who the parents are as best as you can and who hatched out of which color. I think you can still work towards having all blue/green layers! After you hatch eggs from a rooster if you keep some of his daughters and see what color they lay, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether or not he carried blue. This is a very fun project!

I do have 2 roosters in this mix that are very green. Like green feet and face. They don't have beards but think these guys have been told this is a strong indicator that they carry green genes. Would this be a better first step and then later work on beard?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Would a rooster hatched from a very blue egg change anything

No. Since the blue is dominant the hen may carry one or two blue eggshell genes and may pass one down to her offspring.

But if you only keep replacements that hatch from your blue or green eggs you will get there. The only question is how soon.

I hate to tell you this one because I think I was lucky, but the year after I kept a rooster that hatched from a green egg I kept 10 of his pullets long enough to see what eggs they laid before deciding on which 4 to keep. 9 of those 10 laid a blue or green egg.

I do have 2 roosters in this mix that are very green. Like green feet and face. They don't have beards but think these guys have been told this is a strong indicator that they carry green genes. Would this be a better first step and then later work on beard?

There is no direct genetic connection from the blue eggshell gene to any of those other traits. Sorry.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

Is the beard gene strong?
I am not too sure what color egg they hatched from. 70% of the eggs I hatched where green/blue/olive/chocolate so there is a strong chance of a colored gene. But lost track.

Yes bearded gene is dominant. Meaning only one parent has to have the gene for the chicks to show beards

F1 Chicks parents - replace the roosters?

I’d replace the hens and roosters

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

South Africa. Buget option perfered.

I cannot personally verify this, but someone a few months back posted that ZooOmics did blue egg testing.

 

[Mrs. K]

The thing with Easter egger birds - is you have a lot of genes and because of that, their offspring can look very different.

Roosters tend to be cheap - easily upgrade a ragtag bunch of hens pretty quick. Get a purebred rooster with the genes you want. Then as stated earlier - keep track.

However, I hatched out three eggs last summer, a green, a blue, and a white. Two of the pullets are laying green eggs...but I am like you - I didn't keep track.

Mrs K

 

[NatJ]

Could anyone give advice on what roosters I should keep.

I have been trying to get my own Easter egger flock.

Last year I got eggs from a local homesteader and hatched out a few batched for this year's hens. I hatched mostly green and blues however some pinks as well.

I didn't track what came from what egg. And would like to select what roosters to keep.

Rooster 1: small comb and green tint
Rooster 2: small comb and green tint
Rooster 3-7 all have beards.

I have about 35 hens from this mix hatch. And 12 more from previous flock.

dream flock would have beards and lay colored eggs and ideally a few different feather colour's.

Honestly would just like more colour's than not colored.

In that situation, I would keep whichever roosters you like the look of, as long as there is nothing else obviously wrong with them (think about how they behave, whether they are healthy or sickly, whether you care if they are big or small or have a particular body shape, and so forth.)

Then I would incubate green or blue eggs but not other colors.

From eggs that are blue and green, no matter what rooster you use, you should find that at least half of the daughters lay blue or green eggs. If you got lucky in which egg color genes the roosters have, you might have most or all of the pullets laying blue or green eggs.

If you only hatch eggs that are blue or green, then in future years you will know that every cockerel hatched from such an egg, which means he has a good chance of inheriting the blue egg gene from his mother (50% chance or better) plus some chance of inheriting it from his father too (unknown chance).

You might eventually end up with a flock that only lays blue & green, or you might continue to have some that lay other colors even years later.

Or, if you want to keep specific roosters for several years, you could pen each rooster with a few hens that do not lay blue or green eggs. Hatch a bunch of daughters, raise them up, and see what color eggs they lay. If they all lay blue or green eggs, that rooster has two genes for blue eggs, and will give one to every chick he sires. He's a great rooster to use in your flock. If half of his daughters lay blue or green and the other half lay brown or white, he is a reasonable choice. If none of his daughters lay blue or green, he's not a good rooster for your project.

If you want to replace your roosters each year, it's probably not worth the time to test-mate them. But if you want to pick a really good rooster and keep him for several years, it might be worth the effort, if you can't find somewhere to do a test for the blue egg gene.