Olive Egger laying brown eggs.

[bill3607]

Definitely brown ☹ the specks are like a dark maroonish and the speckles are raised. When you touch the egg, you can feel the littlebumps. Weird.

Here it is next to a buff orpington and a frenxh copper maran in the middle. If I didn't see her lay it, I would've thought it was my welsummer that laid it.

I FEEL that I have too many brown layers. Maybe I will change my mind later when the eggs get bigger. But for now, the disappointment is real.

Can you post a picture of the hen or hens that are supposed to be Olive Eggers but laying the brown speckled eggs?

 

[MayBerg]

I have 9 OEs, the Welsummer x CCL cross. So far as I can tell, only one of them lays a green egg, one lays a cream egg and the rest lay brown eggs which look very much like the photo you posted. I am also very disappointed, but it's OK. I've got the breeding stock to breed my own OEs from now on! I won't be wasting money on hatchery OEs anymore.

Mine was supposed to be cuckoo maran cross with Ccl. She has no foot feathers and no crest. Ughhhh. I was so wanting this beautiful olive color.

 

[Buckeye Amy]

Mine was supposed to be cuckoo maran cross with Ccl. She has no foot feathers and no crest. Ughhhh. I was so wanting this beautiful olive color.

I feel your agony.
To be honest, I'm also disappointed in how flighty most of these OEs are. Out of the 9 there are only 2 that are even remotely approachable. I think I will avoid the hybrids that have CCLs in them and stick to Marans, which are more mentally stable! I don't mind birds that are standoffish, but birds that take flight if I approach are not my kind.
Anyway, I'm so glad I'm not the only one disappointed. I mean, I understood there was a chance for brown/cream eggs, but 8 out of 9??? Not acceptable.

 

[MayBerg]

Can you post a picture of the hen or hens that are supposed to be Olive Eggers but laying the brown speckled eggs?

 

[Buckeye Amy]

@MayBerg heres a sample of what I’ve been getting. The green one is the only green I’ve been getting. She lays about every 3 days right now.

 

[MayBerg]

I feel your agony.
To be honest, I'm also disappointed in how flighty most of these OEs are. Out of the 9 there are only 2 that are even remotely approachable. I think I will avoid the hybrids that have CCLs in them and stick to Marans, which are more mentally stable! I don't mind birds that are standoffish, but birds that take flight if I approach are not my kind.
Anyway, I'm so glad I'm not the only one disappointed. I mean, I understood there was a chance for brown/cream eggs, but 8 out of 9??? Not acceptable.

Whaaaaat? 8 out of 9. Unacceptable.
Yeah, hatching eggs under a broody might be better.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

To get reliable Olive Eggers you must begin with pure stock...a pure dark brown genetic bird (rooster side is best) then a pure blue shell genetic bird (hen is best). They will reliably produce 100% green to olive layers.

Why? Because a pure Cream Legbar or Ameraucana, or VERY carefully controlled Olive Egger line, has 2 blue shell genes. They will pass one 100% of the time to their offspring. Blue genetics is dominant. All offspring will have dominant blue.

Your brown coloring is actually hemoglobin wash over shell. Brown wash over white shell, brown eggs. Brown wash over blue shell, green to olive, depending on how many brown genetics are inherited. Brown wash is controlled by about 13 genes. Every time I breed a light brown to a dark brown line, I get a shade inbetween. The brown genes are actually EASIER to breed out of your lines. Blue genes are actually very easy to keep.

If she is a healthy hen, with good color (I think it is in the photo), keep her and get yourself a full blooded Cream Legbar or Ameraucana rooster (I'd skip Araucana as they have infertility problems due to being rumpless). That rooster over your brown layers will create green layers 100% of the time, the first generation...breed those green layers back to the rooster, and you get 50% 2 blue gene layers and 50% single blue gene layers. Sometimes you can tell by the depth of green if you've got single our double blue...but it's hard most of the time.

I actually find it harder to get back to true blue once you begin a green line. I get everything from spring green to olive green, but not true blue, once I enter in those brown genes. It's only this year that I have a cream layer which I am eager to place under a blue line rooster to see if I can get back to true blue.

You can use mixed birds (Olive Eggers) but since they only have 1 blue gene, they will pass no blue 50% of the time meaning the shell will be base white (since no genetics are present to put bile into the calcite gland to create the blue shell coloring).

Good luck with your line. I'm sorry you didn't get what you had hoped to, but understanding the genetics will help you not have surprises. Know anytime you buy an "Olive Egger" line, you could get no blue shell genes and just a brown layer unless the line is VERY controlled. (There's a way to breed back so that your Olive line carries 2 blue shell genes.)

Good luck for next spring.
LofMc

 

[NatJ]

...keep her and get yourself a full blooded Cream Legbar or Ameraucana rooster (I'd skip Araucana as they have infertility problems due to being rumpless). That rooster over your brown layers will create green layers 100% of the time, the first generation

Or breed the current BCM rooster to hens that lay blue eggs. Depending on how many blue egg genes each hen has, either half of her chicks or all of her chicks will lay eggs in some shade of green.

It sounds like there are several blue-layers to choose from:

I have to get a real olive egger unless I breed a few myself with my bcm roo and ccl or get some olive hatching eggs.

Well, I have 2 Americana and seems like they lay blue, no green. It seems like olive eggs are hard to find.

If you want to know how many blue egg genes a hen has, there is a genetic test.
https://iqbirdtesting.com/blueegg
Testing a hen may be cheaper than raising several daughters to laying age to see what they produce. It is definitely faster.

You can also test chicks, if you want to only raise the ones that have a blue egg gene. That lets you re-home or butcher the other ones at an early age. You can do this if you buy more olive eggers, or if you hatch chicks from a hen that has only one blue egg gene. If you have a hen with two blue egg genes and a BCM rooster with none, there is no point in testing the genes of any of their chicks, because each will have one blue egg gene from the mother and none from the father.

 

[MayBerg]

Or breed the current BCM rooster to hens that lay blue eggs. Depending on how many blue egg genes each hen has, either half of her chicks or all of her chicks will lay eggs in some shade of green.

It sounds like there are several blue-layers to choose from:





If you want to know how many blue egg genes a hen has, there is a genetic test.
https://iqbirdtesting.com/blueegg
Testing a hen may be cheaper than raising several daughters to laying age to see what they produce. It is definitely faster.

You can also test chicks, if you want to only raise the ones that have a blue egg gene. That lets you re-home or butcher the other ones at an early age. You can do this if you buy more olive eggers, or if you hatch chicks from a hen that has only one blue egg gene. If you have a hen with two blue egg genes and a BCM rooster with none, there is no point in testing the genes of any of their chicks, because each will have one blue egg gene from the mother and none from the father.

@NatJ.
Thank you so much for answering this thread. Since I am new to chickens, let me ask you this: which of the breed you think is better of those 2 scenarios?

1- I have a Bcm rooster who has 2 sisters with me, or at least, I think they are his sisters since I got them from same breeder at the same time. The 'sisters' lay a fairly dark eggs. I also have 2 CCL (have not started laying yet) and 1 EE who lay beautiful blue eggs.

2- I have the 2 bcm hens that lay the dark eggs, and my friend have 2 CCL roosters that could mate next spring with my girls.

Which breeding do you think will have more of guarantee to get dark green eggs?

 

[AZcluckers]

She looks a lot like my cuckoo marans. I don't think your girl is an olive egger, honestly.