Blue Copper Marans?

[bappl]

Yep. Pea combs are dominant, so the hen (assuming she shows a pea comb herself) could easily have one copy of the pea comb gene and one copy of the single comb gene. That would greatly decrease his chances of having a blue egg gene, though. blue egg genes and pea combs are closely linked. Not impossible to have one without the other, but chances go down a lot. 

(Okay, so if the pullet chicks are showing a single comb then that means her chance of the blue egg gene down. I'm trying to breed first gen olive Eggers. So let me see if I have this correct: let's pretend that she didn't get the blue egg gene. Does that mean she won't have the light olive eggs ? And I shouldn't use her, but would have better chances of getting a second gen olive Egger if I choose a first gen that shows the pea comb. Is that correct? I understand where you said it's still possible. But I'd likely choose a pea comb over a single to increase my likelihood of my hens carrying the blue egg gene)

Let's say this hen did not inherit the blue egg gene. With being half Marans would her eggs likely be dark tan or light brown?

 

[bappl]

Sorry, I meant, would her eggs likely be a shade of brown or tan instead of being light olive green. I worded that all wonky.

 

[bappl]

This is the pullet in question. And by the way, I took a look at that young roo. He has a pea comb.

 

[bappl]

Each progeny receives 1 egg color gene from each parent. Brown wash is a lot trickier and is thought to cover 13 genes.

If you have a parent with 2 blue genes, every chick will receive one blue gene. Blue is dominant, so blue eggs shells will express. With only 1 blue gene present, usually you get pastel blue as opposed to blue.

If your bird has the genetics (about 13) for brown wash, then brown wash over blue shell creates green. If the brown wash is dark, such as Marans, etc., then the color is a deeper green or olive.

If one parent has no brown wash (white or blue layer) and the other parent has brown wash,  you get either tan or light green as typically the brown wash result is the middle color between the light egg and the darker egg as to brown coloring.

I've read that it is best to have the rooster the dark brown genes as somehow that expresses better. (I'm waiting to see that, although one daughter from a terra cotta laying RSL with a Barnevelder father is laying a lovely terra cotta egg, which I would have hoped if daddy has nice egg genetics).

The trouble with roosters is of course you can't see those egg color genetics. You've got to see the results from their daughters.

Back to your question...what happens with a F1 olive egger rooster.....and I just caught that the hen was an EE not an Ameraucana...that's going to make things a lot more difficult.

If he has a pea comb, as Donrae said, chances are he has 1 blue gene as they are closely linked on the allele....but there's no guarantee.

Let's suppose he does have 1 blue gene and hopefully some brown wash too....how that presents will depend upon the hen you pair him with.

Since we are presuming he has 1 blue gene, and the other the "white" or non-blue gene, 50% of his offspring will get 1 blue gene to present light blue egg shells. 50% will get no blue gene and will present white shells.

Now as to the brown wash, that's trickier. As said, it usually ends up a tone between the dark and the light.  One trick is to put him over a white layer to see how dark his brown wash genetics are (and if you get any blue layers). If you get a daughter that lays white eggs, well, golly shucks, he doesn't have any/much brown wash, but he could still have 1 blue gene as remember it is 50/50 if his daughter gets the blue.

If however, you get a medium brown, chances are he's got some decent brown genetics.  Put him over a medium, terra cotta layer mother, and see what happens. You can then somewhat determine what kind of genetics for brown he may be carrying.

Obviously that is not ideal as you've got to do a lot of careful mating and waiting for daughters (once you get them) to grow up and lay, keeping careful record of who's who.

If your goal is olive eggers, it is far, far, easier to buy a rooster from a well known, quality line of dark brown layers and put him over true blue layers with 2 blue genes like true Ameraucana or Cream Legbars or Isbars. That way you'll get 100% olive eggers for first generation. After that, you've got to deal with the 50/50 blue gene issue again as well as how much brown wash they may have received...then you're back to mating and waiting, choosing and culling.

Good luck with your olive eggers.

LofMc

Wow!! That is so interesting!!! I have been thinking about culling my entire flock as I have the barred rocks still and now have black sex link. And my flock is free ranging. I like your idea of a nice dark egg layer from good breeder lines. Do you recommend a certain breed for the roo? And a group of one of breeds you mentioned for the hens. Is either a better egg layer than the other (the breeds you mentioned for the hens)?

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Short answer, my favorite has been my Barnevelder rooster with my Cream Legbars for reasons given below in my long answer, but I am early in my olive egging projects so I will know more when I have results from more daughters.

It all depends upon your goals, and there's a number of avenues you can take.

Taking a step back, remember the easiest and surest way to make only olive eggers would be to get a 2 blue gene rooster such as a true Ameraucana or Cream Legbar and place him over dark egg laying hens, such as Black Copper Marans, which are usually considered the darkest layers of the breeds. Black Copper Marans are fairly easy to obtain, at least in my area.

Having said that, I had good luck with dark laying with Welsummers I got from a breeder, but not all lines lay dark, and they can be splotchy, which may be appealing or not, as the eye beholds. I like the Wellie splotchy eggs personally, but those aren't best for olive eggers. I've had about a 50/50 with dark terra cotta laying and splotchy laying with the Wellies I've had.

Barnevelders are another choice, but they lay more terra cotta than chocolate brown, so it will take you to a slightly different direction.

I'm omitting Penedesenca as I don't see those in my area, and I hate trying to spell that name, but that's another choice.

You could try several of those breeds with a blue gene roo from a good line. Going blue with the roo and dark with the hens allows you to select only the darkest brown eggs from the hens to set which can advance your focused olive egger agenda better.

Now back to dark brown gene roos. If we go with the thought, as I said before, which I've read, and been told by several olive egg breeders, that they do seem to get the darker olive results from the rooster having the dark brown genes. That of course makes it trickier since you don't really know what poppa's genes are until some of his daughters begin to lay. (Mate and wait).

Another advantage to having the roo the dark brown gene is that it also allows you more flexibility in your egg basket color, which I like since I like variety. Creams, tans, terra cotta, dark chocolate, light green, olive laying daughters can all come from your brown gene roo depending upon which hen you set him over. A blue roo will give all eggs varying shades of blue or green or olive to all daughters. If that's what you want, then again, the blue gene roo is the fastest route to select for olive...but shades of blue/green in all my daughters is not what I am personally going for since soon I'd have all blue green layers as I've only room for one rooster and about a dozen breeding hens.

Back to our question now of which dark laying rooster, since you are interested in going that route.

The darkest layers, as stated from many sources and said above, are considered to be Black Copper Marans. Even if you purchase birds or eggs from good lines don't be surprised if those hens grow up and don't lay the darkest eggs. I purchased an expensive Splash Marans whose parents were 7 on the Marans egg scale, but she grew up to lay a variegated egg of 5 on one end and about a 4 on the other. Sigh. ( I use her for breeding because her Splash gives me blue feather coloring in her chicks with my rooster, which is a good way to color code for her genes) That can really slow your breeding results down as you have to mate and wait to see if those brown genes are present in your rooster.

Let's assume you have a nice dark gene BCM roo. I personally have found Marans to be somewhat temperamental. I've had several of them be somewhat snotty. My Splash is quite sweet though. But I did sell my BCM hatched boy as he was already snotty at a young age.

What do I use? I purchased some Barnevelder chicks at the feed store (not a great source but I got what I could in my area). They both turned out to be roos. One was a bit snotty and had a funky comb, so he got re-homed, his brood mate is exhibiting the classic trademarks of a fine Barnevelder rooster, which overall are known for being especially sweet roos. I love my Barny boy. Good temperament in a rooster is important.

I think I lucked out and his genes are carrying the dark colors as over white hen, his daughter produces middle tan. Over terra cotta hen, his daughter produces beautiful rich terra cotta.

So I've got a very sweet Barnevelder rooster...with the added advantage that he is basically red/brown based with no barring. This is useful as it allows me to do some sex linking.

Barney over my Cream Legbar hens produces sex linked olive egger chicks. (Sadly I lost his one daughter, among brothers, of that "marriage" to heat stroke this summer in chickhood.)

Barney over my Splash Marans produes nice blue chicks so I can follow that first generation of possible dark layers. (Those daughters should lay this spring).

Barney over my California Grey white layers produces black sex links whose daughter lays a middle tan (showing Barney has some nice brown in him).

Barney over my Olive (Isbar/Marans) produces black chicks (both sexes) for F2 olive. (Will set that this spring).

I do not recommend Isbars. They are very hard to find, and what I've had have been over inbred such that I had a lot of hatching and chick failure....a curse of Isbar inbreeding.

My Cream Legbars provide the aforementioned sex linking with a non-barred rooster (which you could get with a BCM roo), and I really like the rich CL egg color. Overall they are nice birds, but not as prolific layers as I was told.

I've not had Ameraucana yet. That is hopefully my next hen project as I want to personally compare Cl to Ameraucana in color and egg laying. I think I will likely end up with CL as so many Ameraucana are really EE (with faulty 1 gene blue), but I want to see for myself if that creates a better hen.

I wouldn't go barred with my rooster as all chicks will be barred. I like the fact that my Barnevelder produces sex links with barred mothers (California Grey, Cream Legbar, Rhodebar). He might produce red sexlinks if I had a true silver based, but I'd have to try that out as the black base might get in the way.

The long answer was probably more than you wanted to know, but it gives an idea of what you can do to both achieve egg color and really easy F1 coding in your daughters so you don't have to band. Using the feather coloring can really help that way.

Hope that made sense.

LofMc