Marker-assisted Introgression of Blue Eggshell Color into a White Leghorn Line

The objective of the present study is the demonstration of the efficient transfer of a specific monogenic trait maintained in gene bank, here blue egg shell color, into a contemporary high performing white egg layer chicken line by marker-assisted introgression. This project is part of the EU project IMAGE (Innovative Management of Genetic Resources). In 2016, six Araucana cocks were mated with ten White Leghorn (WL) hens. Two marker-assisted backcross generations (BC1 and BC2) followed by an intercross generation (IC) will be generated, aiming at a high performing homozygous blue layer WL-like line.