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Longshadow Farms

Genetics

If you need some basic genetics information, Genetics for Beginners is an excellent place to start. If after you do some reading there and still have questions, Poultry Genetics Group is a forum for genetics questions. The Coop also has a fairly active genetics message board.

The color blue is the result of a single blue gene (Bl/bl) with extended black (E/E). The double blue gene (Bl/Bl) can be expressed in shades from silver down to pure white with a blue bill. Blue (E/E, Bl,bl) mated to blue produces approximately 50% blue, 25% black (E/E) and 25% silver or splash. Silver/splash mated to black should produce 100% blue. Blue mated to either black or silver/splash should produce approximately 50% blue and 50% of the color mated to it.

If you want to use another color to either improve type or inject some new bloodlines into the blues, I believe that white is easier to use than grey. My experience (and what I have heard from others) has been that white USUALLY covers black and that the white will act like black in the mating. If you use white, you may end up with whites back down the line out of the blues but at least they can be shown too or used for breeding.

The grey isn't as easy to use since your intermediate color will be blue fawn (100%) and doesn't have the extended black. The blue fawn is a wild type (grey call/mallard color) with one blue dilution gene (Bl/bl). If you've used grey and have blue fawns, then you'd need to breed the blue fawn back to blue, yielding 50% blue, 50% blue fawn. The disadvantage of the blue fawn is that it doesn't have the extended black to cover the grey. If the black (or blue) is genetically E/e, then some grey pattern will show through on the breast and under the tail. If you breed two birds with the partial extended black you will get 25% that have the full extended black, 50% with partial extended black and 25% with no extended black. To get the blue color you are after without any grey pattern showing through, you basically need the extended black gene E/E and you need a blue gene Bl/bl.

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