Easter egger genes & breeding olive Eggers

[Stephh0701]

I'm also interested in this experiment! I have an olive egger rooster and some welsummers and an EE I really want to do some experiments with!

 

[motherscluckers12]

Checking in on an old thread here: mcclucker, did you end up breeding your EE rooster to your brown laying hens? If yes, what was the outcome?

I'm curious, as I just hatched out some chicks from my Welsummer, GLW, SLW, and SS hens crossed with my nice EE rooster to see what I get.

I have a beautiful EE rooster. I’m deciding which eggs to try to incubate. I have an EE hen, Olive Egger hens, SLW, and Blue Andalusian, copper Maran and Golden Comets. I would love colored eggs AND beautiful chickens… Any insight from those that have tried would be much appreciated!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a beautiful EE rooster. I’m deciding which eggs to try to incubate. I have an EE hen, Olive Egger hens, SLW, and Blue Andalusian, copper Maran and Golden Comets. I would love colored eggs AND beautiful chickens… Any insight from those that have tried would be much appreciated!

By calling him an EE you have not described him at all. EE's are not a breed so there are no standards. An EE might or might not have the blue egg gene. Saying he is an EE tells me nothing about his color or patterns. Same thing for the EE and OE hens. I don't know what you are working with so I can't make any intelligent guesses.

Do your EE or OE hens lay blue or green eggs? If you hatch blue or green eggs there is a chance the pullets will lay blue or green eggs whether or not the rooster has any blue egg genes to contribute.

Roosters don't lay eggs so you can't tell by looking whether he is contributing a blue egg gene or not. If he does have the blue egg gene there is a chance the other hens daughters might lay a colored egg but there are no guarantees.

 

[DarJones]

IQGenetics can DNA test a rooster to verify genes for oocyanin. If you really want to find out what he carries or whether a hen is homozygous, do the test.

When making crosses with average Easter Eggers, you literally have no idea what could segregate out in the offspring. In crosses with patterned birds such as SLW and GLW, you will most likely get washed out pattern with lots of speckling. The number of genes involved mean it can take several generations to re-stabilize those pretty feathers.