Thank you for your response! Guess it's time to start looking for a better rooster.
I didn't have time this morning to give you this chart (had to have time to look it up in my bookmarks)...it is over simplified, but a breeder I trust recommended it to follow.
Color egg chart genetics:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/273489/lightbox/post/14660804/id/6710899
Egg genetics are interesting. Look to where you want to go for egg color, and choose the best parent stock to get you there. Typically that means using pure stock so that the math is more manageable...the further you get away from both parents having pure color genes, the faster you dilute your coloring in your generations making it harder to get where you want to go.
An egg shell starts as base white. If there is blue genetics (2 genes possible), then the shell is imbedded with blue pigment as bile is picked up and kicked back into the shell process. Crack open a blue egg, and you will see a blue color inside as the shell itself is blue.
If there is brown genetics, then a brown wash is laid over the egg shell as it goes further down the tract, literally like a layer of paint laid onto the shell. Brown is complicated genetically, taking likely 13 genes or more to produce. Really dark brown layers, on the 7 or 8 scale, will often lay less frequently as the egg is literally receiving more wash as it goes slower through the tract. If the egg is freshly laid, you can often scratch off the brown pigment with your nail. Open a brown egg, and you see white shell on the inside. I make sure my nests have soft bedding so that my dark layers do not scratch up the color as they are laid.
A white shelled egg becomes brown from the brown wash. A blue egg becomes green with the brown wash. A blue egg becomes olive green with a dark brown wash.
If your goal is olive eggers, then I've read (in preparing for my own project), having the rooster provide the dark layer gene gives better results for deeper color. I've had local breeders confirm to me that their deeper olive eggers come from the rooster being the dark layer over the blue gene hen.
Dark layer roo over blue layer hen will give you F1 (first generation) olive (with 1 blue gene and brown wash genetics).
Breed back the dark layer roo over F1 olive will give 50% brown (various shades, probably darker) and 50% dark olive green. That's where genetics come in. If you only start with 1 blue gene, you dilute that out too quickly so that deepening your olive becomes mathematically more unlikely (25% F2).
Your CCL/Spitz isn't worthless...he does have the ability to shade your blues a bit, which is probably why he was created. Someone may have been trying to get a "sapphire" blue....light blue layer. You could keep breeding back to blue layers and green layers to see if you get a sapphire or even a spearmint (see chart above).
His down fall is that he only has 1 blue gene which means, as said before, that will dilute out pretty quickly (by F2).
This project is close to my heart as I'm starting with a dark brown layer roo (Barnevelder) with infusing a dark Splash Marans (scale 7) and Cream Legbars (2 blue genes) to hopefully create some really nice shades of olive and green as well as color coding my chicks feathers....Blue Laced dark layers and Black Partridge Olive Eggers. I also have one Isbar/Marans hen that I want to breed to my Barnie to produce F2 dark olive with a black feather. I'm waiting for my hens to begin laying after the winter to start producing my first F1 for shades of green and olive.
Good luck with your project. Nice roosters are usually pretty reasonably priced and can be the best purchase for the dollar for a project.
LofMc
