Olive Egger breeding

[groove20]

I have an olive egger roo over 2x barred rock hens. I want to give him a couple more ladies and am soliciting input as far as what breeds to put with him that will get along with my barred rocks. I am new to breeding chickens so I really don't know what to expect. I thought by putting barred rocks with him, I might get sex link olive eggers...is this an accurate statement? Or are there other factors I have not considered? Thank you!

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi, welcome to BYC!

I don't think you will get sex link OE by having them with the BR.

Really any breed can get along. You have to introduce them properly though.

I would get what breed you want to look at. EE might be nice to add some variety to your egg basket. I like being able to tell who laid what egg and to tell the girls apart right when I look at them. Plus it's great to have a variety of eye candy in the yard.

Is your roo a roo or cockerel? You definitely need more ladies!

 

[teaton]

To sex link barred rocks you put them with a black rooster like an black australorp, or a buff rooster like the orpington. The males will have a white dot on head females will be all black.

To sex link olive eggers you cross them back to blue egg layers like an americauna or EE. The females will have a white spot on head, males will not.

You can search the threads on here or on the web for olive eggers auto sexing and barred rock auto sexing theres alot of people who have tried diffrent things and were successful.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi

I believe you can use any non barred, non white rooster with a barred hen and get sex links, so as long as your rooster is not barred or white you should get sex links.

Quote:
I'm not sure the above is correct. The white head spot is indicative of barring. If your olive egger roo is barred then he may pass it on to female offspring but if there is no barring in the first place then it will not suddenly turn up in a mix of two unbarred birds, especially as barring is a dominant trait.
The thing with EEs and Olive Eggers is that they are not a true breed but a mix, so there is no guarantee of any particular genes, particularly with regard to feather pattern... egg colour genes are make them what they are.

As regards adding other hens, then it depends on your goals..... Do you intend to eat the excess cockerels that will no doubt result from your hatch.... if so, I would go with a dual purpose bird like a light sussex or brahma perhaps or maybe buff orps, so that the males have some meat on them. If you are looking to create a coloured egg box as well as chicks, then EEs give nice variation. Temperament wise I believe australorps are nice and good egg layers.

 

[groove20]

Quote: He is a rooster

I also have another breeding flock with a Legbar rooster paired with 2x Black Copper Marans, 2x EEs each from different hatch, and 1x barnyard mix. I know the Legbar over BCM will give me more Olive Eggers as well! I started off just wanting to add color to my egg basket! But chickens are addicting I'm discovering!! I want to make my flock more narrowly focused and considering ways to profit from my new obsession! Thanks everyone for your valued input

 

[teaton]

Easter eggers and black copper marans give you olive eggers to right? Or is just the true americaunas? I didnt think about the point rebrascora made about the EE and olive eggers both being mixed breed, so its hard to know what traits you will pick up breeding but i did read an article that stated mixing an olive egger back to a blue egger would give you sex linked chicks, ill have to scour the internet for it.
I would also belive that the EE or olive egger would have to have a barred gene though. Its still worth a try.

Your right chickens are very addicting! I started with a small coop and 3 chickens just 2 years ago and now I have 2 very large coops and about 30 chickens and I still want more! Lol

I hatch and sell chicks, the reds sell fast where i live so thats what i breed. (But I'm itching to try the speckled sussex and id love to have a coop full of them as well) chicks sell $5 per chick and are always gone as soon as I put them on craigslist! I also sell eating eggs for $2.50 a dozen and hatching eggs $10 per dozen. I make enough in sales each month to pay for thier feed so that works for me, and I use craigslist to advertise since its free

People like the marans, EE and olive eggers so you shouldnt have any problem selling them if you wanted to the only downfall is most people want a specific breed, not a mix breed. But you could make up for that offering eating eggs or barnyard mix hatching eggs if you had enough to spare.

 

[teaton]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/131131/the-olive-egger-thread/4590

This thread has alot of great breeding advice for olive eggers

 

[dolly85]

The barred rock hens will not contribute to the nice dark brown you're needing to get olive eggers. Try putting in some cuckoo marans with your olive egger roo. Depending on his genes you could get sex links and about half of his female offspring will lay olive eggs.

 

[donrae]

There are lots of recipes for an olive egger. Do you know his parent breeds? Can you post a pic of him?

If he's not barred, not white, he should make sex links over the barred Rock hens.

Egg color is going to be a wild card. They're (the Rocks) regular brown eggers. He should have one brown (with dark modifiers that are pretty complex) and one blue gene. So, his offspring with a brown egger will be half brown and half green (blue plus brown equals green). Some of those green eggers may inherit the dark modifiers from him and give an olive-ish shade, some may not and you'll get various shades of green.

If you're wanting sex linked offspring, you'll need to stay with barred or cuckoo hens. Hatchery cuckoo Marans don't lay really dark eggs, but they could be an option for making nice chicks with him.

Keep some pullets from your Legbar X Marans cross. Those should be barred, and Olive eggers. Put them under your solid OE rooster next spring and you could get some nice sex link chicks. The way the genetics line up, depending on the background of the rooster, you could possibly get honest blue eggs from that next generation also, as well as some nice olive and some dark brown.

Not that I'm an enabler or anything......

 

[teaton]

I ran across a thread today that made me think of this one, they had fizzle olive eggers, im wondering what you would need to breed to produce those. May be worth the homework