They're incredible! You have a yard full of my "wants" list.
Oh and about the "light brown" egg color. Does this mean I potentially won't be able to tell the difference in SFH eggs and the single comb EEs?
Yes potentially. It will all depend on exactly what brown genes she inherits, when she starts laying.
@ashtree @lonnyandrinda
That's where I get confused. If an Ameraucana is OO, then it should pass on one O and get any number of brown genes to make olive. I suppose if my Ameraucanas aren't OO, but are only Oo, I'd have a problem. Now, to cross one of our single combed Olive Eggers with another Marans, you'd want to look for the pea comb. Right? That's what I understood from research, but much like everything else I find on the internet, I can't find it a second time! I guess time will tell. Btw, my splash is in between on all counts...comb, legs, demeanor.
I'm a little confused by what you said... let me try to rephrase. Pea comb is dominant. If they carry it, it has to show. So crossing your single comb brown laying olive egger with a Marans you can only get single combs. No way to get a pea comb or blue eggs from that combination.
If you misspoke and meant to cross single combed brown laying Olive Egger with AMERAUCANA, then yes you would select for pea combs to get the blue eggs back.
If your Ameraucanas are pure they would be OO. You are right that Oo would be a problem. It would mean they are NOT pure and are easter eggers. Sure fire test: breed to any non blue egg laying breed, raise up 10 pullets, and see how many blue/green/olive layers you get. If ANY do not lay blue/green then your Ameraucana is an Oo Easter Egger. Again, using the pea comb you can USUALLY tell who will inherit the blue egg gene. In the research I've read 99 out of 100 times the blue egg gene is linked to the pea comb. The only way to create a single combed blue egg layer, like the Cream Legbar, was to start with that 1 out of 100 where the blue egg gene got disconnected from the pea comb. Technically the Cream Legbar got their blue egg gene from a mystery "Chilean hen" a single combed blue egg layer brought to the UK from South America in the early 1900s.
I am having to do this test breeding with my Cream Legbars because one of my original birds was impure Oo and I didn't know it until spring 2014 when I bred him to his daughters and their offspring started laying. I don't have the advantage of using pea comb to look for the blue egg gene, I am going completely blind and having to wait until the pullets grow out.