Whiting True Blue Breeding Project

See egg and chick pictures as we cross our brightest Whiting True Blue layers to create vibrant blue eggs!

How the Breed Began

Doctor Tom Whiting was a fly fishing feather tying hobbyist who decided to try his hand at breeding roosters with larger hackle feathers better for fly tying. While he was at it, he also decided to breed a blue laying chicken that came in every feather color pattern possible, including barred with barred beards! His result was the Whiting True Blue breed, which will breed true for the blue egg color but always give a glorious range of feather colors. We never know what will hatch out!

Whiting True Blues began as a Araucana & Leghorn cross, just like the Prairie Bluebells. Dr. Whiting then began crossing the brightest blue layers to produce a line where all offspring was carrying two copies of the blue egg gene but laid 300 eggs per year like a Leghorn.

A splash colored, clean faced Whiting True Blue rooster who slightly resembles the white Leghorns in his ancestry.

I adore vibrant, impossibly blue eggs. You know, the kind of blue that almost hurts to look at them on a sunny day. That shade of neon aqua blue is my favorite! We hatch chicks from only the brightest blue eggs to ensure the super blue gene will be forever present in our flock. As such, I typically have 6 or less purebred Whiting True Blue hens who lay our best hatching eggs. (Everyone else goes into our Olive Egger breeding project.) It is my goal to breed blindingly bright blue eggs laid by stunning hens with a range of blue, black, splash, partridge and bi-colored feathers.

Whiting True Blue eggs next to our brightest blue Prairie Bluebell eggs. Each egg is labeled with the breed that laid it.

Our Whitings were ordered from Murray McMurray hatchery in January 2020 and delivered in March 2020. They typically must be ordered months in advance and usually sell out for the rest of the year by April.

Whiting True Blue gray lavender blue rooster hen chicken Murray McMurray rare color — Meet Fitzwilliam, our tri-colored Whiting True Blue rooster. He has a blue body, dark charcoal tail feathers, cream laced hackles & saddle feathers with rusty colored flecking across both shoulders. (He is a blue silver duckwing pattern with mahogany leakage.) Most of his beautiful colored chicks will hatch with a fluffy face.

Update: As of 2021, both our Roosters have been thoroughly test bred and have produced nothing but 100% blue laying offspring, proving they are pure homozygous for the blue egg gene.

Whiting True Blue hen chicken pullet blue egg layer Murray McMurray rare color — This hen hatched as a black chick but feathered out a stunning shade of dark blue. Her name is Charlotte and, fun fact, my original Whiting True Blue flock is all named after characters from Pride and Prejudice.

Lavender Whiting True Blue Hen Murray McMurray rare color super blue egg layer — Meet Jane, a very light blue Whiting True Blue hen.

Partridge wild type purebred brown Whiting True Blue — Chipmunk colored Whiting True Blue chicks can grow up to look very similar to Easter Eggers but will lay that super blue Whiting egg!

Purebred Whiting True Blue hens from Murray McMurray hatchery — Whiting True Blues are friendly and inquisitive. These two were purchased from Murray McMurray Hatchery in March 2020. Notice that the breed can be either clean faced or bearded.

Gray Whiting True Blue laying hen pullet purebred — Blue hens that lay blue eggs are our favorite! This hen, Kitty, is a purebred Whiting True Blue hatched in 2020.

Whiting True Blue laying hens purebred blue egg layers — All three of these girls are purebred Whiting True Blue hens. There is no breed standard color which means you enjoy a colorful flock who lays vibrant blue eggs!

I have found hand-raised Whiting True Blue roosters to be very respectful, desiring to keep a polite distance. Fitzwilliam is a gentleman who produces STUNNING colored chicks!

Our black Whiting True Blue roo “Mr. Darcy” is shown here with several Olive Egger hens. We frequently use him to produce Whiting x Welsummer F1 Speckled Olive Egger crosses because when mated with Welsummers, a few of his chicks hatch in a gorgeous shade of chocolate brown. Mr. Darcy is carrying one dominant black and one recessive wild type gene.

Some of our purebred Whiting Hens enjoying a refreshing drink of molasses water. Clockwise starting with the solid black hen the colors are black, wild type, (light) blue, blue silver duckwing, silver duckwing and blue.

A RAINBOW OF Purebred Whiting True Blue Chicks OUR FLOCK HAS PRODUCED!

Whiting True Blues can come in a huge variety of feather colors. Notice leg colors are also variable.

Gray chipmunk striping and 3-color calico pullets are possible. Both bearded and clean faced chicks can hatch from purebred Whiting True Blue eggs.

purebred whiting true blue chicks — We hatched 3 purebred Whiting True Blue eggs from 2 different hens, fertilized by the same blue rooster, and out came 3 different colored chicks! Hatched on our homestead March 2021. The lighter colored gold chipmunk chick feathered out in a silver duckwing pattern.

A beautiful assortment of colors from an April 2021 hatch. Whiting True Blues can have any feather or leg color, with a bearded or clean face. The high color variability is one of the breed’s primary characteristics.

The following images of purebred Whiting True Blue chicks on green pasture grass were taken by owner Laura Key who hatched them in January 2021. They began laying at exactly 22 weeks old. Photo credit: Laura Key at Clucks & Waddles Homestead

Whiting True Blue chicks possible colors blue black splash chipmunk rare unique tones shades blue egg layers

August 2020 Silver Homestead Hatch Results: 3 Brown Chipmunk, 1 Gold & Gray chipmunk, 2 Blue chicks

November 2020 Independent Hatch Results: 6 Black*, 4 Blue, 3 Brown Chipmunk chicks

December 2020 Independent Hatch Results: 9 Black*, 8 Blue, 2 Brown Chipmunk, 3 Splash chicks.

January 2021 Independent Hatch Results: 7 blue, 3 splash, 3 black, 5 varying chipmunk shades (shown on green grass in pictures above)

January 2021 Independent Hatch Results: 4 brown chipmunk, 1 cream toned chipmunk, 3 blue, 1 splash and 1 black.

March 2021 Silver Homestead Hatch Results: 1 blue, 1 brown chipmunk, 1 cream chipmunk.

April 2021 Silver Homestead Hatch Results: 2 blue, 1 black, 1 splash with grayish-brown stripe down the back (rare color), 2 cream chipmunk, 4 brown chipmunk

*Some black chicks will feather out very dark charcoal blue. These chicks tend to appear dusty black with barely visible black chipmunk stripes. They are actually a shade of blue and can produce blue offspring but are counted as “black” at hatch.

Whiting True blue chick — Some chicks who appear black at hatch will grow very dark blue feathers around 3 weeks old. As adults they are a stunning shade of dark charcoal blue. This chick grew into the adult charcoal gray colored hen shown in an above image of our flock.

Juvenile Pictures

Two images of the same silver duckwing colored pullet. Our blue silver duckwing roo is her father. The blue zip tie on her ankle indicates she’s a purebred Whiting True Blue. She was the brown chipmunk chick with the yellowish face shown above as one of the 3 different colored chicks that hatched when we incubated only 3 eggs.

A pair of purebred Whiting True Blue chicks at 2 months old. I used our blue silver duckwing roo exclusively to breed my Spring 2021 hatch in an attempt to increase the blue (gray) undertones in my line. Most chicks hatched brown or cream chipmunk colored and feathered out in shades of gray. The lighter colored individual on top was a cream chipmunk chick. The pullet with her was a standard brown looking chipmunk chick with no indication that she would feather out with so much blue. It was a nice surprise! Both are pullets.

This 2 month old chick illustrates how tricky the breed can be to sex. At hatch, she wing sexed as a very obvious female. Her comb looks a smidgen prominent but is not as pink as the males her age. There is a tiny bit of brownish feathering on her wing tip but not on her shoulders like some of her male hatch mates are showing. I’ll post the final verdict once I know male or female! **Update July 2021: She’s Female!** Meet “Cookie”, named after her oatmeal cookie colored chipmunk down as a chick.

These eggs were laid by a purebred Whiting True Blue pullet who had just come into lay. She is a Super Blue, the F2 offspring of our brightest laying hen and rooster. Her eggs are so impossibly vibrant blue in daylight, they are difficult to photograph to show their true color.

F2 Super Blue Whiting True Blue shown in an egg basket with speckled olive eggs and a peach Easter Egger egg. These are the brightest blue eggs we have ever been able to produce from any breed.

Our Super Blue pullet’s eggs next to a light green Easter Egger egg.

Shade Variations as the Season Progresses

Here are our F2 Super Blue’s brightest pullet eggs next to a purebred Whiting True Blue egg from a hen who has been laying for 11 months straight. She began laying in July 2020 and this middle egg was collected in June 2021. The egg is a pretty powder blue, even after almost a year straight of laying. (This breed is an egg laying powerhouse!)

The same eggs shown from a different angle. The center egg is from a purebred Whiting True Blue who had been laying for 11 months straight. The others are pullet eggs from a first time F2 Super Blue layer.

Whiting True Blue eggs laid in early summer 2021.

Some of our hens lay eggs with extra calcium deposits, giving them a bumpy texture!

Whiting True Blue, Welsummer and Speckled Olive Egger eggs. Click the image to view our Whiting x Welsummer Speckled Olive Egger breeding project!

Here is how the eggs look when a Whiting True Blue HEN is crossed with a Copper Marans Roo (#6 shade egg). The Whiting hen we used had a bit of a bloom over her blue eggs, which her daughter seemed to inherit, amplifying the tint overlay from the father’s Marans genes. Click the image to view our olive egger breeding page to learn more about how such eggs are created!

First laid Whiting True Blue egg from the chicks owned by Laura Key which were shown above. The pullets began laying at exactly 22 weeks old to the day in June 2021. Whitings can inherit a heavy bloom, which bloom can collect in the egg’s pores and appear as white speckling. Photo Credit: Laura Key at Clucks & Waddles Homestead

Are You Photoshopping these Eggs???

A little, yes. Blue eggs tend to photograph green. I’m adding color-correcting filters so the images show truer-to-life colors on smart phones with factory-set normal brightness levels. Here is a regular photo and a color-corrected photo together: