Buckeye Crosses

[Poultryprincess]

I LUV their coloring!

[WLLady]

oooookay.....
one way to do it....

cross your buckeye with cornish. Keep ALL the kids boys and girls, and cross them ALL. From their kids, you will need to select hard for your colour, the orangy pumpkin (it's diluted and columbian restricted loss of mahogany coloured birds). Select the colour, and select for LACK of lacing, and peacomb.

Then cross the BOYS that match your colour, comb and lack of patterning to your holland GIRLS. Cross your GIRLS to your Holland boys.

From these kids you need to select your black patterned gold columbian restricted pea combed birds. you are going to be overflowing in birds. Most of these offspring will be black....select for non-barred (if you don't want barring), pea comb, colour AND EGG COLOUR. The ongoing birds MUST be white layers. this is your bottleneck here. you will need approximately 516 birds to get 1 female that lays white and has your colour you want. You will not be able to tell with the boys for egg colour, so next generation is your white laying correct coloured GIRL(s) with EACH of your boys that match your colour, comb etc. Then hatch and keep ONLY the white egg layers.....it will be a slow process to weed out the brown eggs but if you keep meticulous track of these tests hatches, grow out and any brown egg throwing dads culled you should be able to get to white eggs in approximately 2 generations. i figure 5 year project.

so there you go. breed everything from first cross and then cull ruthlessly for colour and comb and pattern, then cross in white and then select for egg colour (while still selecting your best coloured birds).

[Robbie]

Yikes!!!! But, I knew it could be done!! LOL I'd better build a few more coops. Thanks!

[WLLady]

oh, keep in mind that's 516 birds to get ONE bird with the traits you want ;-P multiply that by the number of birds you want to establish your new lines with....LOL.
ANYTHING is possible...given enough time, money, birds, space and perseverance!!!!

[windwalkingwolf]

I've got three birds laying white, quite accidentally. The eggs look chalk white, even when wet, and only when candled can you see that they are actually a cream or pale ivory colour. One has Leghorn 3 generations back, but the other 2 are silky mixes, and their father, which is also their grandfather, is 1/4 Marans! These are in my ''roadrunner breeding project, still selecting for colour and type, and will be for a long time yet: egg colour is bottom of the list, and I'm still very undecided what colour I want...but If I can breed a(n almost) white layer accidentally, you can certainly do it on purpose!

[baronrenfrew]

LMAO, yeah, 516 birds for each suitable hen: and you can't pick the hen until mature and laying eggs to determine colour? You're gonna need quota with that many birds! No problem!

[Robbie]

Maybe black feathers

QR_BBPOST I've got three birds laying white, quite accidentally. The eggs look chalk white, even when wet, and only when candled can you see that they are actually a cream or pale ivory colour. One has Leghorn 3 generations back, but the other 2 are silky mixes, and their father, which is also their grandfather, is 1/4 Marans! These are in my ''roadrunner breeding project, still selecting for colour and type, and will be for a long time yet: egg colour is bottom of the list, and I'm still very undecided what colour I want...but If I can breed a(n almost) white layer accidentally, you can certainly do it on purpose!

would be fine.

The trick is the pea comb and the white egg together without using leghorn as a recent cross. Actually it really shouldn't be that difficult, as long as those barred hollands do indeed lay white eggs, and if they have inherited the brown colour inhibition gene.

[Robbie]

Chicks are six weeks old now. I'm very pleased with them, it will be tough to select from the crowd. My project for breeding a landrace (not a true breed, maybe later, we'll see how it all goes)of white eggshell pea combed dual purpose chickens has entered year 2.
The sexes will be separated at week 6, and the single combed birds that are not purebred will be culled. I've only had to cull one chick from my breeding program so far, it was a very slow feathering chick. I want the slow feather gene gone from my flock.
The Buckeye/production red cross program from True North farms has been serendipitous. The chicks are healthy and vigorous, and will add greatly to the egg laying ability of my cross.
I've decided to use the Barred Hollands for the white eggshell donor. Hopefully at least one of my hens, and hopefully the rooster will carry the brown eggshell inhibiting gene Pr, but This cross mucks up a couple of things, it will introduce an E extended black e locus gene into my wheatens, and will also add columbian, and of course barring, which I don't want. Since it's supposedly a dual purpose chicken meant for dinner as well as eggs, I didn't want a black or very dark bird (no dark pin feathers wanted). ) I love the look of the mahogany red and silver cross chicks from True North. If I look closely at a couple it looks like they may even be mottled- where that came from I have no idea, but I do find a yellow legged, mahogany red chicken with white wings and tail feathers, plus white mottling appealing (sort of red shouldered yokohama-ish but with a red and white hackle).
And, it's kind of fun thinking that being a Canadian creation having a red and white bird would be apropos.
I'll have to breed out single combs, the E, the slow feather gene, any willow or green legs, and the columbian Co which will lighten the red and give peppering on the feathers, and the barring, but I may be able to do that in a few more years. Ha haaa! This is fun. And even if they turn out butt-ugly they will still lay eggs of some sort, and still taste like chicken. I can't lose!

[Robbie]

Buckeye/Cornish cross chick, six weeks old.

[Jaye]

cute, and sturdy-looking!