How many roos in our first hatch of olive eggers?

[Cluckatar]

This is quite early, but I can't help but want to try Pictures taken at two weeks of our very first incubator hatch of seven chicks. A total of eight went into lockdown, two brown eggs (silver cuckoo marans hen) and six blue eggs (snowy white easter egger hens). The rooster is a silver cuckoo marans. Curve ball, we re-homed our snowy white easter egger rooster the day we started incubating. My daughter was hoping a few of these might be his babies. Fingers crossed a few turn out to be hens, and that we get some olive eggs when they begin to lay. Some were definitely more cooperative than others for photo day.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Too young to tell.

 

[nuthatched]

Too early yet.

 

[Jenessa_09]

Too early wait about 5 more weeks. I know, you just wanna know it’s very anticipating

 

[Cluckatar]

I can't get a decent picture of these chicks to save my life. But it is 8 weeks now... and I "think" I know what I've got.

#3 and #6 appear to be full Snowy White Easter Egger (we rehomed that rooster the day before I set the eggs in the incubator). One is very likely a roo and the other a hen.

Of the other five... one has classic cuckoo marans rooster coloring and is larger than the others. He also has muffs, so he is olive egger rooster.

Another of the cuckoo chicks has a classic marans comb, I think she is a full silver cuckoo marans hen.

That leaves three dark cuckoo colored chicks, all with muffs. Their combs are less developed than the likely rooster of same cross. I can't believe I'm guessing this, but I think all three are hens. This group is where I might get a surprise though.

That would make two roosters and five hens for these seven chicks.

World's worst chick pics below. Sun through run wire makes for a horrible shadow pattern I can't find a way around, and there is too much going on in the field to safely pull them out one by one without a helper or two.

 

[Omgbrii]

I’m going to say hens too. I have the cockerel version of that color. And three of them!

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

I can't get a decent picture of these chicks to save my life. But it is 8 weeks now... and I "think" I know what I've got.

#3 and #6 appear to be full Snowy White Easter Egger (we rehomed that rooster the day before I set the eggs in the incubator). One is very likely a roo and the other a hen.

Of the other five... one has classic cuckoo marans rooster coloring and is larger than the others. He also has muffs, so he is olive egger rooster.

Another of the cuckoo chicks has a classic marans comb, I think she is a full silver cuckoo marans hen.

That leaves three dark cuckoo colored chicks, all with muffs. Their combs are less developed than the likely rooster of same cross. I can't believe I'm guessing this, but I think all three are hens. This group is where I might get a surprise though.

That would make two roosters and five hens for these seven chicks.

World's worst chick pics below. Sun through run wire makes for a horrible shadow pattern I can't find a way around, and there is too much going on in the field to safely pull them out one by one without a helper or two.

Super hard to tell in these pics, but I for sure see a white and a cuckoo cockerel

 

[Cluckatar]

For those with more experience on the genetics than me... will a cuckoo marans rooster always show up as a chick with the lighter coloring in a cross?

I've been tentatively thinking that since the parents are cuckoo marans and all white EEs, that that pattern might hold for all of the cuckoo chicks. It's more clear in person, but one of the cuckoo chicks has the significantly lighter head, and is much broader. A few of the others have recently gotten taller than him though, and that's worrying me that I've got it wrong.