Olive egger breeding question

jesfields

Chirping
5 Years
May 3, 2015
36
18
84
Hello! I recently hatched some black cooper marans and pure ameraucana. My plan is to cross breed them for olive colored eggs. I am wondering if it would be better for the rooster to be a marans or an ameraucana. I will have hens from each just wondering which rooster would be best to keep. Would there be a difference in appearance or egg color or size if it was marans roo over ameraucana hen vs the other way around? Thanks!
 
It depends on your overall goals. If you can, keep both roosters to ensure the greatest potential for color. If you can't, then decide if you want to work for olive or eventually blue-green in the line with the one rooster....or always keep a pure breed breeding flock and work only for the first generation.

If you only want to keep a flock of pure breeds to breed each season for first generation olive eggers, then it doesn't matter much which breed the rooster is. Most breeders I've talked to say they get better olive results if the rooster is the dark layer, thus my rooster is a Barnevelder over Cream Legbar and Isbar/Marans F1 hens. Others were happy with a blue-gene rooster over dark layers.

But I also wanted a variety of shades and colors, so I know my Barney boy over white or light layers will produce cream and tan, which he does, as well as the greens and olives over the blue gene girls. That was one of my main reasons for keeping the dark layer vs. the blue layer rooster....my flexibility for color. With a blue gene boy, bred over any color layer, I will get shades of blue or green. No whites, tans, pinks or brown tints possible (if he is a 2 blue gene boy...or pure).

If you want to breed so that all your hens eventually lay blue or green, the work from the pure breed blue gene boy, your Ameraucana.

But, if you want to breed for longevity in olive for the line, using line breeding of daughters back to the father, it is better to keep the dark layer rooster (and his in tact brown wash genetics) to use repeatedly over the blue/olive generations. You keep the fresh dark wash genes passing over the pure breeds (F1 Olive) and then over the olive mixes (F2 Olive) to keep olive alive in the line rather than a diluting the brown wash each generation to where you get light green or even blue.

Generally, the boys are longer lived in fertility than the girls (who phase out by 2, or 3 years, where both quantity and egg shell quality can suffer)... A good rooster should last 5 years in fertility.

That's my thoughts. I've given more genetics below if you are interested as to why this works.

Good luck with your olive project :D
LofMc

Olive is created by a blue shell receiving brown wash. If there is no brown wash, the egg appears blue. If it is light brown wash, the egg appears light green. If it is a deeper brown wash (Marans, Welsummer, Barnevelder), then the egg appears olive.

Using a dark layer rooster....In your first generation Marans-Ameraucana, you will get light olive to medium olive eggs. Take those daughters and breed back to the Marans boy, you will get the opportunity for olive/dark olive about 50% of the time and brown/dark brown about 50% of the time

It really depends on the genetics of the rooster, and the receiving hen as well, how dark the shades go. With my Barnevelder boy, I find that the deeper brown passes about 50% of the time, so of my F2 Olive Eggers, I got 25% dark olive and 25% medium olive and about 25% medium brown (with pink overtones) and 25% darker brown...but not as dark as the dark Marans scale (I'm working with Barnevelder).

That means every time you breed back an olive daughter you have about 25% chance (depending on the rooster and hen) of increasing the olive depth.

If you switch the equation....Ameraucana rooster over Marans hens, your darkest brown will be the first generation for the brown genetics. I've heard that the hens don't pass the brown wash as well as the roosters, and I think I agree with that through my Barnevlder-Marans projects and some other breedings.

After that first generation of Ameraucana-Marans, you will be increasing the blue genes with each breed back until you get all offspring to 2 blue genes (I think by F3? or maybe F4) and decreasing the brown wash each generation.

1 blue gene layer generally lays a light blue egg. 2 blue gene layer lays a darker blue egg. Lightening wash will eventually get you to darker blue, ocean blue eggs.
You'd have to go back to the original Marans hens to refresh some brown wash to get to olive again.

My experiences...but I'm only about half way through my project...I've got some nice dark olive, some nice medium olive, but I've got to go back and renew my blue to ensure pure blue and a true green as I'm breeding for a full palette of color....got a nice Cream Legbar pullet in grow out for that.
 
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It depends on your overall goals. If you can, keep both roosters to ensure the greatest potential for color. If you can't, then decide if you want to work for olive or eventually blue-green in the line with the one rooster....or always keep a pure breed breeding flock and work only for the first generation.

If you only want to keep a flock of pure breeds to breed each season for first generation olive eggers, then it doesn't matter much which breed the rooster is. Most breeders I've talked to say they get better olive results if the rooster is the dark layer, thus my rooster is a Barnevelder over Cream Legbar and Isbar/Marans F1 hens. Others were happy with a blue-gene rooster over dark layers.

But I also wanted a variety of shades and colors, so I know my Barney boy over white or light layers will produce cream and tan, which he does, as well as the greens and olives over the blue gene girls. That was one of my main reasons for keeping the dark layer vs. the blue layer rooster....my flexibility for color. With a blue gene boy, bred over any color layer, I will get shades of blue or green. No whites, tans, pinks or brown tints possible (if he is a 2 blue gene boy...or pure).

If you want to breed so that all your hens eventually lay blue or green, the work from the pure breed blue gene boy, your Ameraucana.

But, if you want to breed for longevity in olive for the line, using line breeding of daughters back to the father, it is better to keep the dark layer rooster (and his in tact brown wash genetics) to use repeatedly over the blue/olive generations. You keep the fresh dark wash genes passing over the pure breeds (F1 Olive) and then over the olive mixes (F2 Olive) to keep olive alive in the line rather than a diluting the brown wash each generation to where you get light green or even blue.

Generally, the boys are longer lived in fertility than the girls (who phase out by 2, or 3 years, where both quantity and egg shell quality can suffer)... A good rooster should last 5 years in fertility.

That's my thoughts. I've given more genetics below if you are interested as to why this works.

Good luck with your olive project :D
LofMc

Olive is created by a blue shell receiving brown wash. If there is no brown wash, the egg appears blue. If it is light brown wash, the egg appears light green. If it is a deeper brown wash (Marans, Welsummer, Barnevelder), then the egg appears olive.

Using a dark layer rooster....In your first generation Marans-Ameraucana, you will get light olive to medium olive eggs. Take those daughters and breed back to the Marans boy, you will get the opportunity for olive/dark olive about 50% of the time and brown/dark brown about 50% of the time

It really depends on the genetics of the rooster, and the receiving hen as well, how dark the shades go. With my Barnevelder boy, I find that the deeper brown passes about 50% of the time, so of my F2 Olive Eggers, I got 25% dark olive and 25% medium olive and about 25% medium brown (with pink overtones) and 25% darker brown...but not as dark as the dark Marans scale (I'm working with Barnevelder).

That means every time you breed back an olive daughter you have about 25% chance (depending on the rooster and hen) of increasing the olive depth.

If you switch the equation....Ameraucana rooster over Marans hens, your darkest brown will be the first generation for the brown genetics. I've heard that the hens don't pass the brown wash as well as the roosters, and I think I agree with that through my Barnevlder-Marans projects and some other breedings.

After that first generation of Ameraucana-Marans, you will be increasing the blue genes with each breed back until you get all offspring to 2 blue genes (I think by F3? or maybe F4) and decreasing the brown wash each generation.

1 blue gene layer generally lays a light blue egg. 2 blue gene layer lays a darker blue egg. Lightening wash will eventually get you to darker blue, ocean blue eggs.
You'd have to go back to the original Marans hens to refresh some brown wash to get to olive again.

My experiences...but I'm only about half way through my project...I've got some nice dark olive, some nice medium olive, but I've got to go back and renew my blue to ensure pure blue and a true green as I'm breeding for a full palette of color....got a nice Cream Legbar pullet in grow out for that.

Great info! Thank you!
 
...and re-reading your post again recognizing you will be keeping both Marans and Ameraucana hens.....

It depends on what you want the daughters to do...lay mix colors (browns, olives, greens, blues) or lay shades of blue/green.

Do you want brown/olive or do you want blue/green in the daughters?

LofMc
 
Wow thank you so much for your reply great information! I guess I'm leaning more towards the olive brown color so in that case would want the marans as my rooster? I'm thinking I may keep both and breed the daughters back to the marans rooster. If you bred the daughters back to the ameraucana would the eggs keep getting lighter colored in future generations?
 
Okay...so if you want to go olive and deeper olive, you would need to keep the Marans rooster to breed over the blue or olive layer girls as you will need his dark wash to keep intensifying each generation (up to 3 generations bred back to him)....otherwise, I find the brown wash gets lost.

If you keep the Ameraucana rooster and breed over blue and dark brown girls, the first generation over dark brown girls will be olive. However F2 olive will not get a boost of brown wash from poppa, so you only rely on what momma has. But you gain another blue shell gene in 50% of the daughters. (1 from dad and 1 from your Olive Am-Marans daughter)...you will end up with a bluer shade with less brown wash, so possibly an ocean type green. For the other 50%, they receive the 1 blue gene from dad no blue gene from Olive Am-Marans, so a lighter blue with lighter brown wash...which will equal a light green.

I'll link a simplified color chart below that gives some ideas. (Mind you, I have NEVER achieved the "spearmint"...I think that is wishful thinking....nor the more exotic colors.)

087c4c47971577d4df28d7ecf40d22ee.jpg
 

Great information! I have been trying to understand how the 3 Olive Egger pullets I got from a breeder that specializes in them are all laying medium brown eggs. I was told the roo was a Black Copper Marans and the hen a Blue Ameraucana. I'm disappointed that with the luck of the draw we didn't get even one layer of the olive eggs we were looking for, but the OE are beautiful with great personalities and have a home with our flock.
I'm thinking of raising a few birds to replenish the flock and add interesting egg color. Our current roo is a Coronation sussex and we have Light Sussex hens laying pinkish-brown eggs, Welsummer and Blue Copper Marans hens laying very dark eggs along with some blue laying pure Blue Ameraucanas. I imagine we would end up with a variety of EE's and brown layers. Or we could try again for OE's from a different source.
 
Great information! I have been trying to understand how the 3 Olive Egger pullets I got from a breeder that specializes in them are all laying medium brown eggs. I was told the roo was a Black Copper Marans and the hen a Blue Ameraucana. I'm disappointed that with the luck of the draw we didn't get even one layer of the olive eggs we were looking for, but the OE are beautiful with great personalities and have a home with our flock.
I'm thinking of raising a few birds to replenish the flock and add interesting egg color. Our current roo is a Coronation sussex and we have Light Sussex hens laying pinkish-brown eggs, Welsummer and Blue Copper Marans hens laying very dark eggs along with some blue laying pure Blue Ameraucanas. I imagine we would end up with a variety of EE's and brown layers. Or we could try again for OE's from a different source.


The hen wasn't pure Ameraucana....she had only 1 blue gene, so she was an Olive F1 or F2 mix (Am-Marans) or an EE (Am...any other breed...just not pure).

Pure breed Ameraucanas ALWAYS have a blue gene to pass down (2 blue genes...offspring get 50/50 of either one...that's why you work with pure blue genes rather than the half-breeds to get started).

Working with EE or Olive mix means 50% brown (varying shades depending on mom/dad brown genes lining up) and 50% olive/green (again depending on mom/dad brown genes lining up and getting mom's 1 blue gene to pass down).

Your luck of the draw gave you medium brown. Bummer. Not even a dark brown. Agree...go to a different olive egger breeder and ask for F1 from PURE stock.

I like a colorful egg basket, which is why I keep my dark brown Barney roo (who I tested over white layers first and over medium brown layers to see if he had *any* dark genes...hard to tell with the roo :p

I am getting a lovely shade of colors in my basket.

I wish you the same for yours :D
LofMc
 
Lady of McCamley is giving some really great info.
I went through the same things working with OE. That was a few years ago but back then the "experts" was giving me all sorts of misinformation. Turned out to be a headache at almost every turn.
I was finding the F1s were giving dark green eggs but not dark as I thought they needed to be "olive". After the F1s it was a constant struggle to try to maintain a blue egg gene and the dark enough brown wash in the same bird. With keeping the blue egg gene I was losing the dark wash then getting the dark wash back many would lose the blue egg gene.
That's great that someone has it right and is willing to share.
 
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