The reason Olive eggers "work" is the brown coating and the blue egg shell are different genes( and blue is dominant). I THINK the " degree" of brown pigment is harder to control and would be hard to control that closely by breed.Stupid question:
If you breed an Ameraucana with a Marans you end up with Olive Eggers (because the blue and the brown make that olive-y color).
If you mix red and blue paints, you'll end up with a muddy dark purple (using equal parts, I just did it in the kitchen). It's definitely not a "pretty purple" as the elementary color chart says it is...but it's a dirty purple shade nonetheless.
...if you bred a pink egglayer with a light blue egg layer would you end up with pastel purple egg layers?
What about if you breed OEs with blue egg layers or some Isbars with Ameraucanas, do you get Turquoise/Aquamarine egglayers?
for the record, I love different colored eggs (hence why I'm getting a bunch of different breeds) but I worry sometimes that our breeds will go bye bye with all this mixing for egg color. They all get cracked in the pan the same way.
"Olive" eggs come in a variety of colors, but I think "pink" eggs are mostly lt brown( at least ee pink eggs) . The blue of the eggshell is going to be the same you dont get more blue by putting another blue in there . The Brown varies as each hen lays a different amount of pigment on her egg, so adding differnt brown egg layers will change the egg color.
As far as I know, the purple gene is not really around in the US. There are 2 types of chicken that lay purple eggs one is mostly in Australia, I have a fantasy of importing this one but the stoms 3 or 4 yeas ago wiped most of them out. I know people are working on project lavendar eggs ( see wolftracks on BYC) but they are combining existing shells and pigments as opposed to having a differnt color in the egg.
I am a chicken novice, however, so I could be wrong about the base purple in some chickens.
As for if projects will destroy breeds or not, I am SOOO uninformed on that topic I will stay away
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