The Olive-Egger thread!

[Manningjw]

I have 13 hens. 4 EE's. Two lay green eggs and two lay blue. So the green egg layers would be better to breed to? One of my EE's already lays a darker green egg. In between a mint and olive color. But she runs from the roo. Two of the EE's are going on their second year and won't allow the roo to breed them. Will that change as he gets a little older and larger?

In my experience, yes. Eventually the rooster will be dominant over all hens and should mate with all of them. Even if you don't see it happening, if they run from him he most likely is mating with them. My hens used to run from one of my old roosters too but every so often he would corner them. Roosters are as I would call it 'a bit rapey.'

If your EE's all come from the same source IE hatchery, they all likely have the same chance of having 2 copies of the blue egg gene. Are they all pea combed? I would personally place preference on the most productive hen's eggs, then egg color darker green being better. That's just me, I prefer productivity and sometimes less productive hens have prettier/darker/more vibrant eggs so you don't want to select for that alone.

 

[buckabucka]

     Many hatcheries sell them but they are fairly expensive.  Olive eggers aren't a breed, but are made from breeding a dark egg layer to a blue egg layer.  For example you could get some by breeding your Ameraucana and aracana if they lay blue eggs to one of the dark or chocolate egg layers like marans or welsumers.
      One nice thing about using welsumers is you can often sex the peeps at hatch.

I have 2 EE hens that lay blue eggs and a Welsummer roo. Would it be possible to get OE's from this breeding?

Unless you don't have space, I would go ahead and try it. My original EE rooster X Welsummer hen made a very interesting egg color, kind of gray. I crossed this "OE" hen (her egg was not all that olive) back to an OE rooster and got all kinds of interesting shades. Some did lay brown, but it was a darker brown than my barred rocks, and I got various shades of olive, greenish brown, and light green from her as well.
My more recent cross of a Marans X true Ameraucana yielded the best olive color, but you would likely get some interesting eggs from the Welsummer cross if that is all you have to work with.
This photo is somewhere in the thread a long time ago, but I will post it again here:

Welsummer egg in center. The resulting gray egg is on the right.

 

[aart]

I have 2 EE hens that lay blue eggs and a Welsummer roo. Would it be possible to get OE's from this breeding?

Yes indeed, I did this cross this year and got olive layers.

That's exciting! My roo is only 5 months old and is not breeding to any of my EE's. He prefers the more docile hens. When I'm ready to breed them, should I separate him into a pen with the EE's?

Just hatch the blue eggs, no need to separate birds....tho marking the chicks might be a problem.
I was lucky in that I had a hen go broody and only gave her the blue eggs, then later banded the pullets.

 

[cicknmama]

The EE with the pretty green eggs is a good layer also. I also have a pullet with blue eggs that is a very good layer also. An egg almost every day. I will try to hatch out green and blue eggs and see what I get. Looking forward to the spring! What incubator do you recommend? I would love to get a broody hen to do it, but just in case, i will need a back up plan. Is it easier to sex the chicks from the cross?

 

[ochochicas]

Our rooster was 7 months old when we got him. At first he only had a half dozen younger hens that he was successfully fertilizing. Now he's over a year old and almost all of his 20 hens are laying fertile eggs. I've seen him fertilize three different girls in a 5 minute period. Apparently those roosters have a lot of stamina once they are all grown up. LOL

 

[jesmtz]

I agree with aart--looks like a pullet. There is not enough red in the neck and there are no wattles.

Cute!

13.5 weeks old now. Looks so rooish to me

 

[ronott1]

13.5 weeks old now. Looks so rooish to me

Let me see if I can find one of my hens that is a similar cross....

The feathers on these, when they were pullets, look like the feathers you see. Also, the comb on the back is similar to the comb on yours. Also notice, now wattles like yours.

 

[jesmtz]

Let me see if I can find one of my hens that is a similar cross.... The feathers on these, when they were pullets, look like the feathers you see. Also, the comb on the back is similar to the comb on yours. Also notice, now wattles like yours.

True I totally forgot about the wattles. Comb is big but no coloring like my other girls . Thanks! Your picture just gave me hope again

 

[ChickenJesus]

Is the shell color sex linked or independent of the sex chromosome? Meaning does it matter if the hen or rooster produce blue and the opposite sex produce brown to get a green egg or does one of the sexes HAVE to be blue and the other HAVE to be brown?

 

[ronott1]

Is the shell color sex linked or independent of the sex chromosome? Meaning does it matter if the hen or rooster produce blue and the opposite sex produce brown to get a green egg or does one of the sexes HAVE to be blue and the other HAVE to be brown?

Shell color is not sex linked. Some of the brown genes may be sexlinked( I do not think so though). You get Olive colored eggs by having a blue egg shell laying breed crossed with a dark egg laying breed. It does not seem to matter much which is male or female.