ameraucana crosses... worth the effort?

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Fri Feb 19, 2016 7:37 pm

gidday: this year I will cross an ameraucana roo with red layer hybrid hens. so I will have "easter eggers" that lay a blue egg right? the ameraucanas I have are attractive but are not as productive as I would hope. what I expect from this cross is a blue egg layer with that lays a number of eggs from the two foundation groups.

what do you think?

JimW · Post by **JimW** » Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:33 pm

I may be wrong, just thinking quickly, but the ameraucana roo will give a blue egg gene and the red layer hen will give a brown egg gene to the offspring, I believe? One blue egg gene + one brown egg gene combine to give a greenish/olive coloured egg, I think.

My Marans x Ameraucana hens lay olive greenish eggs.

Robbie · Post by **Robbie** » Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:34 pm

You will get various shades of green eggs not blue. The red sex links lay a brown egg, they will pass that on to the cross, and when the cross "paints" the blue egg brown the resulting egg looks green.
If you want blue eggs, you'll need to cross with a white egg layer, a production leghorn will definitely help in the egg quantity department, but the egg colour blue will be paler (probably) than the pure Ameraucana.
Might be best to find an Ameracuana breeder who is breeding for production. Or a good laying line of blue egg producing (some are more greenish) cream legbars. I think Grade Eh farms has those.

Eggsaggerate · Post by **Eggsaggerate** » Fri Feb 19, 2016 9:01 pm

If any thing, I would cross with a white egg layer. The Hamburgs I have had lay a medium sized white egg and generally once a day. I haven't owned any other white egg layers but I imagine some else can comment.

Post by **WLLady** » Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:02 pm

If you cross to brown layers you will get green eggs. If you cross to a white layer you will keep the blue. Your birds will be a mix of bearded and muffed and non-bearded and non-muffed....you will then have to breed again and select for the traits you want if your aim is to get back to ameraucana with better production. If you do want to get back to the ameraucana but with production you will not want to use a dominant white bird like some white leghorns...the offspring will be white and you will have to backcross to get back to anything but white. So it really depends. If you want great laying easter eggers then your plan sounds great, you will get good producing green layers.

I have been messing around for a while with black gold ameraucanas-not apa recognized so technically ees...these were wheaten ameraucana crossed to awesome rhode island red layers. I selected the offspring for down colour at hatching and kept the e+ chipmunks. This gave me basically a partridge type bird with gold in the front -hackles and shoulders and breast and brown to black on the back half. They lay green eggs, much larger and more productive that my wheatens ever did. But the first generation adults were still very small like the wheaten line. I bred males to females, weeded out the non chipmunk kids -at this point i got a few wheaten kids back but they dont have the good wheaten qualities because of the modifiers brought in by the rir parents. I now have adults from the second cross, the size is better. I had to weed out some brown layers that lost the blue gene through the cross, but i have 3 girls that lay green eggs nice extra large eggs. The adults are about 2 pounds larger than the wheaten founders, but still smaller than the rir line. I have just replaced the male with a new cockerel from a selected cross from different lines to try to increase the adult size again, but he hasnt figured out what to do yet-he is only 28 weeks....and the girls are just starting to listen to him lol. Alas i find myself facing a downsizing, and am unsure if i can continue - i should find out in a couple of weeks what is in store in the future for me healthwise. If things are good and i wont be out of the game too long i will continue this developmental line and see how far i can get....but its kind of what i imagine you are pondering doing....you will need about 3 or 4 generations to really "get there" but it is really satisfying when it starts to come together.....

JimW · Post by **JimW** » Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:35 pm

My Cream Legbars lay a nice blue egg, but 3 of my 4 hens are young, should start laying soon, so I am not sure how they will be for egg production yet. My 4th Legbar hen is a year older she averaged 4-5 eggs a week, spring, summer and early fall.

Jim

Post by **Killerbunny** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 6:49 am

Not for egg laying but when I crossed my Wyandotte boy over Mouse the amer/arau/whatever there were only cockerels but at 14 weeks they dressed to 3 - 3 1/2 lb of deliciousness, perfect size for the 2 of us. I'm goin to try Lucky over hubbys 2 ameraucanas this year (thanks Joan).

Bayvistafarm · Post by **Bayvistafarm** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 8:20 am

WLLady... I crossed your Ameracauna boy with my EO's. (BAD idea... as if EO's weren't friendly enough).... and every single one of them lays a blue egg of various degrees. Is it because the EO's lay a light brown egg? I also crossed my black sex link hens with the Swedish flower rooster, and somehow ended up with 2 birds with feathers on their legs.... and each of them lay blue eggs. Where that came from I still don't know, and they are both big black beautiful birds. So, even tho I know crap about genetics... I will NOT even try to attempt figuring it out... coming out with a cross like that. The black sex linked moms were made with barred rock girls over a RIR rooster. I have NO Idea what is in the Swedish flower line up... but someone is throwing a blue egg'd gene somewhere.

Post by **WLLady** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 9:33 am

Yep blue x light brown = blue or very blue as opposed to green. Blue x brown = green. Blue x marans 4/5 or darker egg = olive. Bvf someone must have been carrying blue somewhere way in the past maybe a rogue cockerel got in and donated a blue gene but not muffs and beard so the looked like non-blue carriers....i think somewhere down that line you got some feathered legged black birds from me....maybe one of them was a carrier-i have had ees and ameraucanas from the beginning of forever and i did have someone farm sit and a massive breakout that i had to resort once...maybe i got one wrong? Its very possible....so....who knows. Maybe someone crossed a pen 3 generations before you got the birds?

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 10:42 am

baronrenfrew wrote:QR_BBPOST gidday: this year I will cross an ameraucana roo with red layer hybrid hens. so I will have "easter eggers" that lay a blue egg right? the ameraucanas I have are attractive but are not as productive as I would hope. what I expect from this cross is a blue egg layer with that lays a number of eggs from the >>>two foundation groups<<<<.

what do you think?

If you use red layer hybrids you will be putting together more then two foundation breeds.
Many unknown genes in that kind of roulette.