WLLady, a question lol!!!

Skinny rooster · Post by **Skinny rooster** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 12:03 am

I'm directing this toward WLLady but anyone with an interesting answer jump in. Is there anything interesting a person can do regarding breeding the "red star, Isa Brown, or whatever you want to call them" type hybrid layer, meaning feather colour wise that is? The goal would be a laying hen that isn't that boring orange colour on the first mating.

I did for example use a RIR rooster once and the chicks looked RIR when grown but I only had a few so I don't know if that would always be the case.

windwalkingwolf · Post by **windwalkingwolf** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 12:44 am

Oh yes! But this one is WLLady's to field, and she's much less long-winded than I am :)
But I'll try. RIR NO. Something wheaten based like a hatchery Easter egger will give you colours out the yin yang. *Bows out* :D

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 7:03 am

Given that the red layers are based on RIR bloodlines: a barred rock roo would give a great mix (black star I think) that would be attractive. An Euskal Oiloa, Black Australop, Buckeye, speckled or light sussex, would also be productive and attractive mixes. An ameraucana or legbar roo would be productive "easter eggers" with blue/green eggs.

Please define what you call "attractive".

Post by **WLLady** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 8:14 am

So if you have red star girls or isa browns...and want some other colour you are going to need to breed to the loudest outbred mix of a rooster (preferably with different egg genes too-because you want different) and then will suffer through 1 generation of relative boringness and then in your second generation you will get the weirdest looking bunch of barnyard stuff you could imagine-some green, brown, and various shades of greeny blue eggs and all kinds of colours of feathers too depending on the male. ideally you will want a lemon based boy (split silver and gold). Personally i would go with lemon because then you'll get silver based girls and gold based girls right off the bat. Since ISA reds are RIR based (RIR hen, RIW rooster mix plus a bunch of other proprietary things that are unknown) the red base is going to be ingrained, and you need to mix something more powerful into it. I gather these birds are wheaten based, which means you will need to cross something with an E locus allele that will immediately mask or alter this. E and ER will give you a bunch of black chickens in the first generation with some hackle leakage..not much you can do there...because the E and ER in the first generation will cover the eWh pattern effect in the adults. if you breed back to an e+ bearing you will probably get some partially striped chicks, or chicks with broken stripes or dots, and depending on how strong the modifiers are in the ISA reds, you will get back an "almost ISA red" bird, with some subtle changes. Where these crosses all shine are in the second generation where you take your e+/eWh birds and cross them and get your e+/e+, e+/eWh, and eWh/eWh birds back with all the various modifiers all scrambled up. striped chicks, partially striped chicks and solid down chicks with and without red....and depending (if you use the lemon rooster) gold and or silver in the hackles. So...e+ based would be something like a welsummer or a e+ based easter egger....and lots of barnyard mixes that are already out there carry e+

So what is your goal? easier to set up a "plan" if i know what you are wanting....if you want a mix pack of chick down and different adult colours, or egg colour changes, or just random coloured flock.....or all of the above....

baron if you breed back to a barred rock rooster everyone in the first generation will be black and white striped....everyone. 100% jailbirds in the barnyard LOL. been there. done that.
Breeding back to eWh based (like EOs or RIRs) will give you a solid coloured chick, and first generation will all be reddish (from the isa browns), but with enough modifiers you might be able to get some speckling into the offspring if you use a Marraduna EO, but ALL the kids will have the "barring" like effect, it is not a sex linked breeding if the male is barred.

personally i would find a lemon based (split gold/silver) easter egger with a pea or split pea/single comb, with blue in the feathers on the e+/e+ background. first generation you will get white, columbian (white and black) and various incomplete columbians in shades of white, golden with black, silver or blue in the hackles. then leave that male (or a similar unrelated male like dad) in with the new girls and you'll get virtually every colour combo you can imagine in the second generation.

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 9:41 am

Gee...why do I feel like a kid in school where the prof asks a question...I throw up a decent answer...then the prof hauls me out says I am 10% right then goes out to explain every detail of the 90% where I was wrong? (Actually I like Kathy's answer better: heck the lemon thing sounds like fun!)
I'm just an old country boy, "my uncle's got a rooster that beat up a fox then killed a rattlesnake heeya that roo's got big stones!"
Never did do much of that book learnin stuff!

Skinny rooster · Post by **Skinny rooster** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 11:35 am

baronrenfrew wrote:QR_BBPOST Gee...why do I feel like a kid in school where the prof asks a question...I throw up a decent answer...then the prof hauls me out says I am 10% right then goes out to explain every detail of the 90% where I was wrong? (Actually I like Kathy's answer better: heck the lemon thing sounds like fun!)
I'm just an old country boy, "my uncle's got a rooster that beat up a fox then killed a rattlesnake heeya that roo's got big stones!"
Never did do much of that book learnin stuff!

Baron when given lemons, make lemonade!

Skinny rooster · Post by **Skinny rooster** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 11:46 am

The quotes thing went wonky on me, hmmm.

My goal is to have chickens that are not that dull orange-ish white colour lol.

So if I were to get a speckled Sussex rooster what would happen?

If I used a Welsummer rooster what would happen?

If I used a blue/red Ameraucana what would happen?

I actually would prefer to stick with the brown eggs but mostly looking for interesting bird colour. I was trying to see if there is an interesting cross out there that I haven't heard of yet.

Post by **WLLady** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 12:03 pm

sorry baron......
not really having a good day today, got some bad news. usually i'm pretty tactful.....(sometimes)
let me perk on those questions for a bit skinny rooster....bblater!

Post by **poultry_admin** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 12:08 pm

Skinny rooster wrote:QR_BBPOST The quotes thing went wonky on me, hmmm.

Fixed it for you

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 12:42 pm

Kathy...don't apologize for being smart! I have a sense of humour and if I was offended you'd know it. That lemon based rooster ameraucana/ee sounds like lots of fun.
Now if the subject were tax laws; or mutual funds; or trees; or some politics/history then my answer would be just as thorough!
P.s. We are in London tonight and it bugs me that we won't have time to drop in for coffee. I'll definetly drop in on my spring tour in March.