The Olive-Egger thread!

[aart]

My orpington hen is acting like she want to go broody so I'm collecting eggs from 6 hens. Cream Legbar, 2 BCM, Olive Egger (lays brown eggs), 2 Brahma × Cream Legbars! Can't wait for all the Olive Eggers and BCMs!

Um, OE's don't lay brown
So I assume your cockbird is BCM?
Only guarantee of OE is out of the CL...
....the mixed hens will likely produce brown layers.

I do have photos actually, these were taken on New Year’s Day so around 7 weeks old. At the moment feathers look hennish to me, aka no pointy feathers in tail or on neck. These are the only 2 to hatch so I’m hoping I have at least 1 Hen!!

Hmm, still not sure, the one is pretty red....might have to wait for hackle and saddle feathers at around 16 weeks.

 

[The Moonshiner]

View attachment 1259583 @ScottandSam I got my OE from Meyers Hatchery. She’s a BCM/Ameracauna mix I believe. They have two different lines of OE & I got two of their other line(cream legbar/Welsummer) & one of the BCM/Ameracauna line. One died & the other left lays a brown egg(my luck). This is Vera that lays my beautiful OE

Curious about your other OE.
The one pictured is from their BCM X ameraucana line. Black color, comb and muffs/beard clearly shows she's from that cross.
The CCL X welsummer cross should look a lot like a welsummer pattern. Have straight comb, no muffs/beard but possible crest. Does th hat sound like your brown egg layer OE?
Reason I'm curious is because there should be no way for a pure welsummer crossed with pure CCL to lay a brown egg.
Has me wondering what's going on with what they're selling.

 

[pioneerchick816]

This is one of them(she died though) The other one that lays brown does not have a crest. She looks almost just like my Welsummer

 

[pioneerchick816]

This is Olive. Her egg is tan. Not even dark like a Welsummer. I watched her lay it

 

[The Moonshiner]

View attachment 1260119 This is Olive. Her egg is tan. Not even dark like a Welsummer. I watched her lay it

That's very odd.
She looks like what I'd expect she would being that cross.
Legbars should carry two genes for blue eggs which also means they would pass a blue egg gene to every offspring.
Clearly that hen didn't get a blue egg gene so that must mean not all their legbars are pure for blue eggs.
Would make me very wary about buying any legbars from them for sure.
I think some legbars have had issues with that from the beginning. Years and years ago I had Green fire legbars and several laid green eggs instead of blue.

 

[pioneerchick816]

@The Moonshiner Genectics are really interesting to me, but are beyond my scope for now. I find it fascinating & from the little I have followed on the SOP BCM thread, they can be tricky & things can pop up that you never knew were buried in there

 

[LilJoe]

Um, OE's don't lay brown
So I assume your cockbird is BCM?
Only guarantee of OE is the CL...
....the mixed hens will likely produce brown layers.

Hmm, still not sure, the one is pretty red....might have to wait for hackle and saddle feathers at around 16 weeks.

She was hatched out of an oliver egger's egg. From what I understand, OE × BCM = 50% olive eggs and 50% brown... also... why wouldn't the mixes' chicks lay olive eggs?

Here are the two roos I have that are covering the hens to make OE:
BCM over-
Cream Legbar
The mixes

CL over-
brown egg laying OE

 

[aart]

She was hatched out of an oliver egger's egg. From what I understand, OE × BCM = 50% olive eggs and 50% brown... also... why wouldn't the mixes' chicks lay olive eggs?

IMO, if they don't lay olive eggs, they are not olive eggers.

Yep, as soon as you start crossing, or back crossing, for second generation your chances of getting olive egg laying girls goes down. 50% is a guess as you don't know if a bird carries 1 or 2 blue genes and if only 1, if it will pass down or not.

If you really want all OE chicks, put the BCM cock over the CL hens, and the CL cock over the BCM hens. Separate them all out like that in 2 groups and wait 3-4 weeks for the unwanted sperm to pass before you gather eggs for hatching. Leave the mixes out of the mix(haha!) and of course the above groupings will only work if you are sure they are pure breeds. The BCM(cock) x CL(hen) will give you sexlinked chicks, sexable at hatch, so you could sell OE pullets as chicks.

Not sure what your goals are, if you're just playing around or want to sell OE layer chicks. Using OE or EE (they are both mixes) is a crap shoot and you have to wait until they lay to see if you actually produced an Olive Egg laying pullet.

 

[The Moonshiner]

IMO, if they don't lay olive eggs, they are not olive eggers.

Yep, as soon as you start crossing, or back crossing, for second generation your chances of getting olive egg laying girls goes down. 50% is a guess as you don't know if a bird carries 1 or 2 blue genes and if only 1, if it will pass down or not.

If you really want all OE chicks, put the BCM cock over the CL hens, and the CL cock over the BCM hens. Separate them all out like that in 2 groups and wait 3-4 weeks for the unwanted sperm to pass before you gather eggs for hatching. Leave the mixes out of the mix(haha!) and of course the above groupings will only work if you are sure they are pure breeds. The BCM(cock) x CL(hen) will give you sexlinked chicks, sexable at hatch, so you could sell OE pullets as chicks.

Not sure what your goals are, if you're just playing around or want to sell OE layer chicks. Using OE or EE (they are both mixes) is a crap shoot and you have to wait until they lay to see if you actually produced an Olive Egg laying pullet.

I agree.
I'm probably worse about what to call things. I wouldn't call any that don't actually lay olive colored eggs OEs.
Even if they laid green but not dark enough to consider olive I'd just say those were EEs. Don't call brown egg laying birds EEs either. Don't seem right to me.
All the F1s are only carrying one blue egg gene so that's 50% chance of it passing it on and 50% chance it doesn't so I'm sure that's where the 50% odds are coming from. But ya that's only one side so odds will depend on that its breed to. Another F1, back to a pure for blue egg bird or a dark brown breed that carries no blue gene.
So there's the issue. Breed to up the chances of blue egg gene or lower the chances to try and darken the green.
Imo it would be wise to start with the absolute darkest brown egg layers. I've had a lot of OEs not lay dark enough green in the F1s just because the marans only laid a decent egg not super dark.
Going as dark as you can will get you a generation or two that you can concentrate on blue egg gene. You start out with a medium dark egg layer thinking you can easily back breed for darkness that puts you behind the 8 ball already.
You're right every generation might give you some improvement on a few of the birds but it ups the percentage of throw away birds to and unlike breeding for color and such you won't know on those till they start laying.
I like the olive eggs but they're a pain to breed especially trying to breed a line of.
I'd stick with keeping the parent breeds and only producing and selling F1s.

 

[aart]

I like the olive eggs but they're a pain to breed especially trying to breed a line of.
I'd stick with keeping the parent breeds and only producing and selling F1s.

Ditto Dat!!^^^
Takes a lot of spaces, breeding stock, marking of birds, and record keeping to do a multi generational line of OE's.