How can I "make" an olive egger?

[Rose Quartz]

Oh I see! But instead of doing easter eggers could I cross him with another blue layer such as a cream legbar? I just want to know what two breeds that they are made up of just in case I want to sell some and want to be able to tell people what mixes they are of.

If you want your offspring to lay green eggs for sure you have to have one of the parents with 2 blue egg genes, and one with brown egg genes.

If you're uncertain if the parent has 2 blue egg genes, or if you know they only have 1, then the offspring could lay brown and not green at all.

The options for chicken eggs are either Blue, which is dominant, or white which is recessive. Brown is a modifier for both of them. Either making a white shell brown, or a blue shell green.

If you're starting with a cream legbar that should be a double blue gene and cover that hen with a dark brown shell rooster, then the offspring should have olive shelled eggs.

What I've run into with every attempt I've made at it is that chickens who should have 2 blue shell genes don't and i get offspring laying shell colors I don't want. Which is why I've given up on it.

 

[Frizzle and Friends]

Oh I see! But instead of doing easter eggers could I cross him with another blue layer such as a cream legbar? I just want to know what two breeds that they are made up of just in case I want to sell some and want to be able to tell people what mixes they are of.

Yup, any blue egg layer will do. The only thing to keep in mind is the blue egg laying gene is dominant, so you stand a chance of a hen that lays blue eggs producing offspring that lay eggs that are white based.

Legbars should be pure for the blue egg gene, same with true Ameraucanas. The thing with Easter Eggers is that they may not be pure for the blue egg gene, and a blue egg laying hen could produce offspring that lay brown or white eggs.

 

[TexasBlues]

The problem doesn’t seem to be with the blue layers, but with your rooster. They passed the blue gene down to your chick ( which is a pretty hen). Apparently the brown was not inherited and hence no green/olive.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

For true olive its a true blue egg gene over a dark brown layer...a light brown layer is an easter egger

 

[NatJ]

I mean, that is how you do it. Perhaps whatever a sapphire gem is it isn’t homozygous for blue egg gene, so it didn’t pass it on to all offspring?

Sapphire Gems lay brown eggs. They are homozygous for the not-blue egg gene. The "Sapphire" in their name is because they have blue feathers, not anything to do with egg color.
https://hoovershatchery.com/sapphiregem.html

Since the pullet does lay blue or light green eggs, she did inherit the blue egg gene from her Easter Egger mother. She just didn't get enough brown egg genes to lay dark green eggs ("olive").

Blue egg layer to a brown egg layer. That simple. You want darker olive, use darker brown egg layer like Marans.

That would be my advice too: use a rooster with the genes for darker brown eggs.

 

[BGMatt]

Sapphire Gems lay brown eggs. They are homozygous for the not-blue egg gene. The "Sapphire" in their name is because they have blue feathers, not anything to do with egg color.
https://hoovershatchery.com/sapphiregem.html

Since the pullet does lay blue or light green eggs, she did inherit the blue egg gene from her Easter Egger mother. She just didn't get enough brown egg genes to lay dark green eggs ("olive").

Thanks for the correction. I don’t keep up on all the weird crossbred named “breeds” lol. Sorry if my original comment confused anyone then.

 

[NatJ]

Thanks for the correction. I don’t keep up on all the weird crossbred named “breeds” lol. Sorry if my original comment confused anyone then.

I know how that goes. Every time I turn around there are a few more!

The "Sapphire Gems" came out a few years ago when blue-feathered sexlinks were the new exciting thing, and some hatchery put a clever name on them (maybe Hoovers?)

 

[talkinboutchickens]

The problem doesn’t seem to be with the blue layers, but with your rooster. They passed the blue gene down to your chick ( which is a pretty hen). Apparently the brown was not inherited and hence no green/olive.

Oh so I should probably use a pure breed then? That makes sense about the brown gene not inherited. I'm really bad about all the genes stuff lol.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Unfortunately I don't have any pure breed roos at the moment so I will probably have to get one in the future as well as a few blue layers and put them all in one coop. I am awful with all the genes stuff so I hope I'm successful in my chicken breeding Is there any way to know if the hen has 2 blue shell genes?

 

[NatJ]

Oh so I should probably use a pure breed then? That makes sense about the brown gene not inherited. I'm really bad about all the genes stuff lol.

A purebred is more likely to produce daughters with consistent genes for the amount of brown on the eggs. A hybrid is more likely to produce variable offspring. So if you hatch more daughters from the current rooster and hen, you might find that some daughters lay darker green eggs than others. I would not expect any to be very dark green, but some will probably be darker than what the first pullet lays.

What you really need is a rooster with the genes for dark brown eggs, regardless of whether he is purebred or not. For example, "Midnight Majesty Marans" are a hybrid that produces dark brown eggs. A rooster of that hybrid would probably work for breeding Olive Eggers, because it is a mix of two different colors of Marans (so there are genes for dark brown eggs on both sides of the cross.)

Is there any way to know if the hen has 2 blue shell genes?

You can breed her to a rooster with no blue egg genes, raise a bunch of daughters, and see if they all lay eggs with blue in them (blue, green, or olive). If any daughter lays eggs with no blue, then the mother has a not-blue egg gene. If every pullet lays eggs with blue, and you have more than about 8 of them, you can be pretty sure the hen does have two blue egg shell genes.

Or you can get a DNA test:
https://iqbirdtesting.com/blueegg
The DNA test is probably cheaper than raising a bunch of daughters to laying age just so you can tell how many blue egg genes their mother has. But if you wanted to raise the pullets anyway, there would be no point in also paying for a DNA test, because the pullets would eventually give you the answer.