A genes question!

[Lucylou]

I have 6 chooks of various breeds, 2 hybrid heaven only knows what :lol: 2 marans, 1 campine & 1 what I thought was a light sussex.

Its taken some months to work out which hen was laying which egg, the campine is easy as she lays white eggs, the marans are supposed to lay brown & I think I've eventually worked that they are! The mixed-up hybrids = pinky beige & that leaves little 'I'm supposed to be a sussex but having an identity crisis!!' I think she's laying brown eggs but smaller than the Marans. She's also quite small compared to the Marans & I thought Lt Sussex's were large too.

So just wondered out of interest if anyone can give me any background on how this might have happened. I'm not in the least bothered whether she's a Sussex or not as I'm not interested in breeding from her its just interesting from the gene pool aspect. I've read something about Sussex's being crossed with Marans to get certain colours,which I suppose affects the eggs colour.
Anyone know anything on this subject?

 

[Davidd]

Hello, if your marans are cuckoo they will lay darkish brown eggs- depends on the strain- if they are french copper blacks/blues or wheatons they will lay really dark coffee coloured eggs- light sussex should lay a light brown egg- it should be easy to tell the difference if they are all pure bred. As for size - hens eggs get bigger (and fewer) with age so if she has just started laying then the eggs will be small ( pullet eggs)
regards, David

 

[Lucylou]

Hi Davidd, Yes, one is a cukoo maran & one is black but they both lay almost the same colour eggs, definately not choc brown but still dark. Occasionally they have a few speckles on but not always.

Maybe they're not all pure bred (even though meant to be) as these 2 & the Sussex lay eggs more or less same colour. They're the same age & the Marans eggs are a nice size now with the Sussex's smaller.

Can you tell me does the size of a mature bird vary very much or are they fairly standard? Because the Sussex is smaller & does seem to have stopped growing so I think she'll stay this size now.

Thanks

 

[pebojuno]

Could she be a bantam sussex? Mind you, I have one light sussex pullet who is between bantam and LF sized too

 

[Anonymous]

I had a pure breed bantam Light Sussex up until recently. She laid very pale eggs, what I think is termed 'tinted' (?) - the same colour as the Pekins.
I read that batams should be 1/4 size of the LF, but she was at least 1/2 the size of my Black Rocks. To me she looked quite big, so I just assumed that Light Sussex LF were huge, or my Black Rocks were small - certainly now I've seen them in their new home with a flock of RIRs they are defeinietly smaller than them.

 

[girlracer265]

our light sussex lay a very light brown egg, i guess you could say almost like some of the pekin eggs, which vary from very creamy to light brown, depending which pekin laid them not that i can tell which hen, just which house it came from