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Olive Egger

Olive Egger chickens are produced from a crossing of breeds. Like Easter Eggers, crossing a blue...
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General Information

Breed Purpose
Egg Layer
Comb
Pea
Broodiness
Average
Climate Tolerance
All Climates
Egg Productivity
Medium
Egg Size
Medium
Egg Color
Olive to khaki
Breed Temperament
Varies
Breed Colors/Varieties
Varies
Breed Size
Large Fowl
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Olive Egger chickens are produced from a crossing of breeds. Like Easter Eggers, crossing a blue egg layer or chicken carrying a blue egg gene (i.e., Ameraucana, Araucana) to a dark brown layer/gene carrier (i.e., Marans, Welsummer), you will get a layer of olive colored eggs.

Breeding results can vary depending on what types of breeds are used and if they are pure. Olive Egger chickens will vary greatly in appearance, body type, etc., and are not an official breed with a set of standards. However, they are becoming quite popular with breeders and backyard enthusiasts as a way to diversify egg colors in your egg basket.

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(Green) Olive Egger eggs

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Olive Egger chick

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Olive Egger hen

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Young Olive Egger Rooster

There is a thread here on BYC dedicated to Olive Eggers: http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/131131/the-olive-egger-thread/3540#post_8233099
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Latest reviews

F
Olive Eggers can have various breed parentage!
Pros: Lovely olive eggs in the basket and typically high productivity. My girl is very heat tolerant in my mild winter/searing hot summer Zone 9B climate. She is also one of my very quietest.
Cons: Unknown breed parents for their cross. Any Chocolate or Light Brown Egger with any Blue Egger will do! So feathering, temperament and climate durability are highly varied also.
:hmm Hard to tell what you'll get with a cross-bred chicken like the Olive Eggers unless you know the specific parents or even parentage breeds! My "Livvie" appears to be Crested Cream Legbar (blue) crossed with a Plymouth Barred Rock (brown)??? She's just turning two, a teensy bit flighty and decided to go broody! I might try to use her to raise me a rooster for them, plus 2 more girls to my current healthy mixed Heritage & Cross 8???
ChickenMath!
Purchase Price
~$5???
Purchase Date
Spring 2022
talkinboutchickens
such gentleman rooster
Pros: very sweet
Cons: can be mean
I only have one olive egger, his name is Benny and I got him from a local breeder. Let me just say- the SWEETEST boy to his hens. He will literally make nests for them, cuddles with them, and he even stuffs his face in their backs when they are cuddling 🥺
Whenever anyone comes to my house they always comment on how beautiful he is.

I can't say that they are all nice though.....
I once had a really mean olive egger named Dumpling, he would attack me all the time and chase me around the yard. I have tried 2 times to get an olive egger hen and have not got one yet 😠 Only have got roos.
I just really want those olive eggs.

Benny😇
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Purchase Price
Around $12 or more from a local breeder
Purchase Date
2021
Muscoweewee
Pros: Beautiful sky blue eggs, beautiful unique chicken, big personality, MUFFFFSSSS, BEEEAAARDDDSSS
Cons: Bad egg patterns, has big voice box, enjoys sound of ones own voice, not very hygenic (gets food stuck in muffs and beard)
My olive egger is an Ameruacana mix. She's a pretty crap layer (she gave up laying after two sky blue eggs and now hogs the laying boxes to lay her phantom eggs), and she came home with a bumble foot. She also enjoys screaming her heart out for no apparent reason. Mine is a little on the dumb side, with some difficulty eating (you have to hand feed them, and when they're full, they'll just look at you).

Negatives aside, olive eggers have big personalities and beautiful eggs (when they choose to lay them). They are friendly inquisitive bird (a little too heavy to fly as much as the average leghorn), and enjoy massages and sitting in your lap (a little too much as tehy sometimes fall asleep - once she's on, she'll never leave!). They are also relatively beautiful, and once you've looked into their derpy eyes, you know you're not going to let this chicken go. Seriously, who doesn't want a bearded, muffed wonder!
I would recommend this chicken for kids (please DON'T use this beautiful inquisitive breed for meat)!!!!!!

everything is worth it for the muffs
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Comments

Illia
Olive Eggers actually aren't a breed, and very few have "striped" feathers. Are you sure you have Olive Eggers? If they truly are Olive Eggers, in most cases they're actually bigger than the average laying hen because of their non-hatchery background, however some do have hatchery based parents.
 
Rjaym73
Illia is correct, they aren't actually a breed, they are a cross between a dark egg layer, usually marans, but sometimes wellsummer or penedesenca and a blue/green egg layer, ameraucana, araucana or easter egger.
They can be any color, and type can vary tremendously, I started a line of them I crossed blue ameraucanas with blue copper marans. They were blue, they had feathered shanks with muffs, and most of them after the second generation crossed back to marans, they laid nice olive eggs, some with speckles. They were large birds, but I have seen all types and sizes.
 
snooptwomey
The olive eggers i know of are def not small. much larger than avg. The ones I have seen are mixed with a jersey Giant.
 
tommysgirl
If you scroll through the pics on the breed information page she is the one standing in the coop doorway. She has a rosey pink breast and golden penciled feathers around her neck now but in the pick she is younger and doesn't have the neck penciling yet. I am going to click the "make primary" button and maybe she will be the primary on your computer I don't know if it works that way.
 
tommysgirl
So I was able to post two more pictures. Neither of them are great since she is always in a hurry to get where she is going but you can see her breast is rosey her head is golden and her body is a blue/brown/grey they are the photos with -6jpeg and -7jpeg as their last identifying characters.
 
emmapal
I have one of the barred olive eggers that looks just like a barred rock but with a pea/rose comb. She does look striped. No idea on her parentage. She is a squat, chubby bird, so shorter than the rest of our flock. Her eggs are a smooth khaki green color.
 
dekel18042
My OE's all are good sized, nothing small about them at all. I would say most aren't barred. If a cuckoo marans were used in the cross, they could be.
 
Chook Kingdom
I used to have an olive egger named Bonnie, she didn't produce much. They are definitely one of my favorites too.
 
hellbender
Once you get them into the coop, leave them there for several days. That will sometimes get them going to roost in the early evening. If I had to take chickens off my roof or out of trees at night, they'd come off with the crack of a .22 short to the head and become low-slow flying soup.

Seriously...try keeping them in for perhaps 2 weeks. Sounds like it couldn't hurt.
 

Item information

Category
Chicken Breeds
Added by
livin-green
Views
84,935
Watchers
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Comments
37
Reviews
11
Last update
Rating
4.36 star(s) 14 ratings

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