The blue Flemish Giant is another one of those beautiful, yet elusive colors. They're gorgeous when you get a good one, but a good one is hard to get. Blues, like the blacks, are very hard to breed the right color on the right body. Although, one may argue, that's the challenge that every variety faces, a few of the varieties seem to face this challenge more often. Blue is one of them.
A good blue is a rich slate blue all over, free from any fading, rusty coloration, white spots, or scattered white hairs. Unlike a black, they are to have blue-gray eyes, which adds a little more difficulty. Many blues that have a heavy black influence may breed brown-eyed blues. Blacks are commonly used, even in other breeds, with blues to richen the blue coloration. The blue in the above photo is a very nice blue, demonstration not only good color, but also good type. Those two qualities don't come hand in hand all that often-of course, it does happen.
A blue would be disqualified at a show if it had white spots, or excessive white hairs, mismatched toe-nails, brown eyes, or any other fault that extremely detracts from the animal's appearance. It would be heavily faulted if it had rusty coloring, some white scattering hairs, or too light or too dark of blue coloring. It isn't recommended to cross blues into steels, or any agouti coloration, and I would THINK it not to be recommended to cross with fawn, or white either. To breed good blues, one must develop the lines, possibly using some blacks, which takes a long time and a whole lot of patience. But, again, they are worth it.
GENETICS OF A BLUE:
aa B- C- dd E- en en
Blues are genetically the same as a black with one small difference, the "dd" or dilute gene. Blue is essentially a diluted black and that is recessive to black. It is possible to get blues from blacks, but not blacks from blues (two blues). Again, this color is a self and cannot produce any agouti colors (sandy, fawn, light gray, steel) unless pred to the appropriate colors or white.
