blue egg layers?

[janeyo]

Well I am well and truly blined bt science - have decided to get some normal hens again instead! Can't be doing wiht hatching my own.

I am getting a cambridge blue and a speckeldy. No blue eggs this time...

[petal]

We have a black araucana pullet. If she breeds with our gold silkie, what colour eggs are the offspring likely to lay?

[Bramble-Poultry]

she has a blue egg laying gene which will be passed on to some of her progeny, but the silkie has a very light egg shell colour, which you may find dominates the offspring.

try it, keep all the hens back and see what colour eggs they lay! but i would expect 75% light eggers, and 25% blue

[walldanzig]

your right Bramble they where hatched in June last year they are so friendly compared to the others and they always stay together

[Hilary B]

A good many years ago one particular colour/breed combination was down to 3 'lines'. They were talking about possibly being able to retrieve them by starting with a crossbred that looked close to right (same breed/different colour crossed with not-too-different breed/same colour, then select the best 'typey' hens), and breeding back to the 3 surviving lines in turn, so the 4th generation would be 1/8 outcross, presumably you could then repeat the breeding to the 3 original lines, ending up with a very-nearly true-breed, possibly in sufficient numbers to risk a bit more in-breeding.
Any thoughts from the breed/show experts?

[palomino]

I'm in Cambs and I got a gorgeous blue-egg-laying hybrid in a selection from Thornes Garden and Poultry Centre, between Stotfold and Letchworth. She's docile, gentle and lays a large egg every 2 or 3 days at the moment. They call this hybrid type a Skyline and I think she was £16.00 last summer at 16 weeks old. She's pale red with a more cream breast, with a crest. I was impressed with their birds, I also got a Magpie (reverse Sussex) and a Speckledy, who are fab, but the lovely Amber Star (also known as Silver Nick) died completely unexpectedly one night a few weeks after she began to lay, no idea why.

[palomino]

I don't really understand avian genetics either but mating father to daughter is apparently less likely to throw up defects than with mother to son, or brother to sister.

...This is also the case with guinea pigs!

[petal]

I'm in Cambs and I got a gorgeous blue-egg-laying hybrid in a selection from Thornes Garden and Poultry Centre, between Stotfold and Letchworth. She's docile, gentle and lays a large egg every 2 or 3 days at the moment. They call this hybrid type a Skyline and I think she was £16.00 last summer at 16 weeks old. She's pale red with a more cream breast, with a crest. I was impressed with their birds, I also got a Magpie (reverse Sussex) and a Speckledy, who are fab, but the lovely Amber Star (also known as Silver Nick) died completely unexpectedly one night a few weeks after she began to lay, no idea why.

hmm, yes I have had a light sussex and a white star from here that dropped dead shortly after buying.....

[RichmondHens]

Crossed my cream legbars with one of my rescue cocks (unknown breeding) last summer, sold the chicks. Purchaser today informed me they have started laying - bluey green eggs!

[Bramble-Poultry]

if you'd known that you could have charged more!!!

[RichmondHens]

Money went to the school as I donated the eggs for their hatching project. They approached me for fertile eggs (any breed) and thought it would be interesting to have a combo of colours. Agreement was any chicks hatched could be sold, proceeds to school. So I gave cream legbar, minorca, welsummer and light sussex. As we don't have a CL cock (you had one of the brothers BP, do you still have him btw) the CL hens run with two of the rescue boys. Now I'm really wondering what mixture of stuff those boys have in their genes!