The Olive-Egger thread!

[Wynette]

texas -

Congrats on the eggie! It's beautiful!

 

[texasgal]

Thank you .. I knew there was a possibility of an OE or two when I hatched these chicks .. I was THRILLED with the egg .. now I have to slueth and find out who is laying it .. AND figure out how to take better pictures .. color is soooo tricky.

 

[Wynette]

Seems like the darker Marans and any green/blue eggs are always tough to get a true sense of the real color from a picture. Bear in mind, too, that the color of the egg could change drastically in the first month - at least it often does in my olive egger girls!

 

[Lensters]

Quote:
I've noticed that too. The eggs from my Olive Eggers and Marans/Welsummer crosses lighten significantly while all of my purebred Wellies and Marans' egg colors don't change significantly. It makes me think that all of those people selling "purebred" eggs which are very light "because it is at the end of the hen's laying cycle" are really selling eggs from mutts.

 

[buckabucka]

Wow, this is a long thread. I wasn't planning on keeping a rooster for my flock (now 10 weeks old). But I have an EE rooster with a pea comb. From what I've read here, if I keep him and cross him with either my Welsummer or Black Copper Maran hen, I should get olive eggs, correct?
It may be worth keeping him. We are new to chickens, but I selected breeds that would give me a variety of egg colors because I just love the way they look.

Robin

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
Yes you can. With an EE rooster though, you may hatch some with straight combs. Just keep the girls with pea combs.

 

[texasgal]

Quote:
Just a correction here .. If you breed him to your Wellie's and BCM .. any resulting CHICKS will lay olive eggs .. The Wellies and BCM will still lay brown eggs regardless of what you breed them to ...

 

[NellaBean]

My pretty olive egger girl just started laying in the last week or so. I have been letting one of my broody cochins sit on the eggs, but stole the first two....

They are much darker than the look in the picture. Darn cell phone camera. I am going to try to get a "real light" picture of them one day.

My girl appears to be an ameracauna/BCM cross. She is black with red around the neck and a HUUUUGE beard. Super cute. Her eggs are fertile too! I assume any resulting pullets would lay lighter green eggs, as my boys are all regular brown egg breeds (cochin, rock).

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
Just a correction here .. If you breed him to your Wellie's and BCM .. any resulting CHICKS will lay olive eggs .. The Wellies and BCM will still lay brown eggs regardless of what you breed them to ...

I'm thinking that last statement may be confusing also . An EE roo can have two copies for blue/green eggs and produce all blue/green/olive eggers , one copy and produce 50% on other breeds , or none at all and produce blue/green eggers only if inherited from the female side .

 

[livin-green]

Quote:
Just a correction here .. If you breed him to your Wellie's and BCM .. any resulting CHICKS will lay olive eggs .. The Wellies and BCM will still lay brown eggs regardless of what you breed them to ...

I'm thinking that last statement may be confusing also . An EE roo can have two copies for blue/green eggs and produce all blue/green/olive eggers , one copy and produce 50% on other breeds , or none at all and produce blue/green eggers only if inherited from the female side .

Thanks for posting this--I was thinking something along the same lines myself, but then I'm really new to the breeding/genetics thing. I'm still a little confused about a lot of the genetics (i.e., what genes come from which parent, which are recessive or dominant, how do you avoid "inbreeding"...and the list goes on). I probably really just know enough to make me dangerous! LOL!

Can you or anyone else on this thread provide some reference material--books, links, or the like--for newbies like me to read up on this stuff?? There have got to be some good resources out there to study this stuff. I've Googled a couple of times and have never gotten any really good info.

Thanks so much!!