Olive Egger and egg color

[Meg-in-MT]

Ive never been able to have 2-3 roosters all get along, sadly. I have 11 roosters right now.... 3 with ladies, and the rest in pens with other roosters. I feel so bad for them... not being able to free run. Some are going in the freezer this week because they became jerks over the winter, and even worse now that its spring fever here!! But Ideally I could have 3 that co-exist with my 35-40 hens. SIGH. one day maybe
......

And yes, you would have 1000 pics of hens "shopping" for a box. I watched a full hour of 15 sec videos of NOTHING BUT SHOPPING. LOL

They will tango on and off in the spring time, but nothing more than some bloody combs come of it. Otherwise, one goes this way with his ladies and the other goes that way, etc. I think the most I've had (mature roosters) is six and it was much of the same. They've got a lot of room to spread out. Maybe it's that and a little bit of luck.

I set up a game camera one time and put it on bursts of five I know what you mean!

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Im really glad u re-activated this thread, 'cause its always fun to see other's eggs. Meg, your wyandotte cross roo must have a dark egg breed mixed in, because to my knowledge the various wyandotte colors/varieties all lay much lighter shades of brown eggs, nothing close to dark enough to make a nice olive shade. Whatever breed/mix your roo is, if he's the one that helped make your new olive-egg laying hen, thats all that matters! That matcha egg truly is a beautiful shade of green. And @Minky your olive shades are Really Dark! You might have me beat on darkness, but i have some that come close. And that's ok this isnt a contest; i think all the shades are pretty! On that note, my girls lay a huge variety of olive shades. Not just many shades of olive green, but varying shades of olive brown too. (The eggs are still green eggs, but some almost look more brown than green.) I have 3 very large free-range flocks mainly divided by age, & of course i mostly have no clue which girl lays what egg either. Minky your idea of halving the flocks again and again to figure out which hen lays what would never work for me either. Anyway, I'll be takin pics of the various olive eggs this weekend and will post them here next week. Will also be takin some photos to submit to the current "natural egg photo contest" before the deadline passes. Yall gonna enter that contest? I think u should!

That's what I thought, too. But I seemed to forget that I've got a wyandotte/Ameraucana rooster, as well, and a fair amount of marans layers. It reality could be either way. Need to find the hen...

I can't wait to see your eggs and what you come up with for the contest! I just love looking at everyone's creative sides. And beautiful eggs, of course.

Feel free to share pictures of your flock, as well. I love the little bird in your avatar. What is she?

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Yes your olive egg layer could just as easily be a result from the blue egg gene side of your Ameraucana cross roo, & one of your marans hens. I really dont concern myself with who lays what anymore, unless i want to specifically hatch a certain hen's eggs. And the only reason i do that is to try and produce a specific feather color. Otherwise just select the eggs i want the broodys to hatch. And like Forest Gump and his box of chicolates, usually dont know what im gonna get. Would be Nice to know who lays what. But really impossible unless i hung around the nest boxes for a couple days and recorded hens/eggs as they went in and out of the nestboxes. The little pullet in my current avatar was about 3 months old in the pic. She is a silver partridge Easter Egger. She is an exceptionally sweet and friendly pullet, & i thought the avatar pic somewhat captured her personality. I change my avatar fairly often tho, gotta give others their "15 minutes of fame." I know its a bit off topic from olive egg colors, but wanted to say, my roosters dont fight with each other either. Yes, lots of space AND keeping only roosters with great temperments for breeding are the keys. I started dividing flocks by age so i can use hatching eggs from younger hens to keep broody hatch rates near 100%. (I dont cull older hens; they have earned their retirement benefits.) Before i started keeping separate flocks, had one giant flock of approx. 200 hens and 17 roosters. Roos would ocassionally posture and threaten each other, til one made his retreat and peace was restored. They never actually never drew blood at all. I hope more people post their pretty olive egg photos here. I'll add mine next week!

 

[DarJones]

Re roosters getting along, this is breed dependent. Silver Laced Wyandottes will generally get along with a yard full of other roosters so long as they all grew up together. The key is that they socially recognize each other.

Re egg color, there are three gene groups interacting. The first is a single gene on chromosome 1 that produces blue eggs. The second is the porphyrin biopath which produces a brown coating. The third is one of the various white egg genes which both means a gene that disables the porphyrin biopath and at the same time modifies the egg shell color. Note that all egg shells start out white. If the chicken has the oocyanin gene, then the egg shell will be blue. If the chicken has the biopath for porphyrin, then the egg will get a brown coating. This is kind of like the way Red, Green, and Blue colors can be mixed to achieve other colors.

White + oocanin = blue eggs
Intense white + oocyanin = sky blue eggs
Intense white + oocyanin + porphyrin = tan over blue eggs
white + oocyanin + porphryin = olive
white + oocyanin + over^ porphryin = deep olive (marans over blue)

Grass green eggs are one variant I have not delved into genetically. I suspect it is from having intense white + oocyanin + a variant in the porphyrin biopath.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Try this one out.... I purchased 5 Ameraucana chicks from McMurray Hatchery. I expected them to lay blue eggs.... Imagine my surprise when their eggs came out a solid green color. I don't know if they are dark enough to be considered olive eggers but maybe close.

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

I agree that different breeds of roosters have different levels of aggression, including some that will fight to the death. Most of the roos i keep are Easter Eggers and ISA Browns (direct from hatchery) The Easter egger roos are comprised of Many breed mixes, including wellsummers, cuckoo marans, isa browns, blue andalusians, blue australorps, blue wyandottes, & many other breeds. I mixed in many breeds to first get varied egg colors, then mixed in different colors to get a colorful flock. (As i mixed different breeds in, only kept roos that retained first muffs & beards, then later also slate legs, cause thats what i want my Easter eggers to look like). The roos are various ages; some grew up with each other but many didnt. In my flocks, i feel certain that only keeping gentle roosters for breeding has made all the difference. But i didnt have highly aggressive breeds to begin with, & they free-range with plenty of pasture & woods to roam.

 

[Bound to Sea]

Try this one out.... I purchased 5 Ameraucana chicks from McMurray Hatchery. I expected them to lay blue eggs.... Imagine my surprise when their eggs came out a solid green color. I don't know if they are dark enough to be considered olive eggers but maybe close.

I think the kinda the same thing just happened to me. I purchased an Olive Egger pullet from a supposidly reputable breeder and today, I caught her in the nest. I believe she left me a brown egg!! Very disappointed .

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Re roosters getting along, this is breed dependent. Silver Laced Wyandottes will generally get along with a yard full of other roosters so long as they all grew up together. The key is that they socially recognize each other.

Re egg color, there are three gene groups interacting. The first is a single gene on chromosome 1 that produces blue eggs. The second is the porphyrin biopath which produces a brown coating. The third is one of the various white egg genes which both means a gene that disables the porphyrin biopath and at the same time modifies the egg shell color. Note that all egg shells start out white. If the chicken has the oocyanin gene, then the egg shell will be blue. If the chicken has the biopath for porphyrin, then the egg will get a brown coating. This is kind of like the way Red, Green, and Blue colors can be mixed to achieve other colors.

White + oocanin = blue eggs
Intense white + oocyanin = sky blue eggs
Intense white + oocyanin + porphyrin = tan over blue eggs
white + oocyanin + porphryin = olive
white + oocyanin + over^ porphryin = deep olive (marans over blue)

Grass green eggs are one variant I have not delved into genetically. I suspect it is from having intense white + oocyanin + a variant in the porphyrin biopath.

That's very cool, DarJones. Thank you for the explanation on why they are colored like they are!

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Yes your olive egg layer could just as easily be a result from the blue egg gene side of your Ameraucana cross roo, & one of your marans hens. I really dont concern myself with who lays what anymore, unless i want to specifically hatch a certain hen's eggs. And the only reason i do that is to try and produce a specific feather color. Otherwise just select the eggs i want the broodys to hatch. And like Forest Gump and his box of chicolates, usually dont know what im gonna get. Would be Nice to know who lays what. But really impossible unless i hung around the nest boxes for a couple days and recorded hens/eggs as they went in and out of the nestboxes. The little pullet in my current avatar was about 3 months old in the pic. She is a silver partridge Easter Egger. She is an exceptionally sweet and friendly pullet, & i thought the avatar pic somewhat captured her personality. I change my avatar fairly often tho, gotta give others their "15 minutes of fame." I know its a bit off topic from olive egg colors, but wanted to say, my roosters dont fight with each other either. Yes, lots of space AND keeping only roosters with great temperments for breeding are the keys. I started dividing flocks by age so i can use hatching eggs from younger hens to keep broody hatch rates near 100%. (I dont cull older hens; they have earned their retirement benefits.) Before i started keeping separate flocks, had one giant flock of approx. 200 hens and 17 roosters. Roos would ocassionally posture and threaten each other, til one made his retreat and peace was restored. They never actually never drew blood at all. I hope more people post their pretty olive egg photos here. I'll add mine next week!

I'm the same way, just never know what's coming out. Doesn't matter much, but sometimes the curiosity means I wish I kept better track!

She's a very pretty pullet. How old is she now?

I think there are so many variables in multiple rooster flocks that let it work or not. It'd be interesting to hear more stories as far as layout, how many hens/roosters and which breeds.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Try this one out.... I purchased 5 Ameraucana chicks from McMurray Hatchery. I expected them to lay blue eggs.... Imagine my surprise when their eggs came out a solid green color. I don't know if they are dark enough to be considered olive eggers but maybe close.

Feel free to share a picture, if you like! That's too bad when that happens. All that anticipation and then getting nothing like you thought you would.