The Olive-Egger thread!

[thechickonthehill]

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Wow, these birds are gorgeous! I'm working on a Wheaten/BW Olive Egger line, it's cool to see something in pictures that I've kept mulling over in my head for so long. You mentioned they're part Fav, do they lay a dark egg?

I can't wait to start hatching babies now.

Thanks! These girls (Frick and Frack we call them) are two of my favorite hens. They were the only survivors of my very first hatch - out of 24 eggs - and they are spoiled absolutely rotten. Frick lays an aqua colored egg and Frack (she's the one at the front of the pic with the blue in her tail) lays, well, an odd colored egg.

Occasionally Frack's eggs will look something like Frick's but often they are a golden olive? color. You can tell that the blue tint is there but it has that Faverolles cream tint laid over it and it is really pretty because the creamy tint is translucent and almost gives the egg a glow. I'll try to take some pictures but I don't know if it will show. Its nice though because I always know who laid that egg. They are quite the characters, especially Frick. She is an escape artist and easily flies over the 7 foot fence of the layer pen. Then she comes up to peer through the sliding glass door into the office (where she was raised) and squawk at me. If I would let her, she would come right back in and be a house chicken I think!

If I sit down outside she will fly right to my lap and demand treats and then of course Frack has to come running just in case she talks me into it.

 

[thechickonthehill]

Okay, I finally got some egg pics. The picture really doesn't do the color justice.

At the top, the darkest brown egg is from my Wheaten Marans. On either side of her egg are Frack's eggs. They are kind of a golden green color. The biggest tan egg (on the left side) is from my Gold Laced Cochin and the smaller tan egg is from my Salmon Faverolles pullet (just started laying last week). The one in between those two is Frick's egg and it is actually a darker aqua blue than it looks in this pic. All of the colors look a bit washed out in the pic. Frack's eggs are the closest I have to olive eggs so far. I do have a little Welsummer/EE cross that should start laying in a couple of weeks. Hopefully she will add another shade to my egg basket.

 

[buckabucka]

Wow! Beautiful eggs!!

 

[jeremy]

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Very nice eggs!
& I like the background quilt too, very lovely.

Here's a kind of off topic question- where did you get your Wheaten Marans?

 

[ruth]

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Ford is one handsome dude. I sure would love to have him back. He's exactly what I'm breeding towards but I don't have a single male that looks like him - lots of blue coppery females but no males. My males all look more like BCMs. I am hatching my 3rd generation of olive eggers - meaning olive eggs that came from hens that lay olive eggs which came from olive eggs - so I'm hoping for more blues, especially some blue boys.

However, what I've been seeing, almost 100%, is that the chicks that hatch and are black and white turn out to be roos and look like BCMs. Some look like pure BCMs but have the pea comb. Others have a blue chest intead of black but still look like a BCM. The chicks that hatch blue turn out to be females and end up looking like blue copper marans with muffs. So, so far, I'm getting sex-link results but haven't really tested that thoroughly.

 

[thechickonthehill]

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Very nice eggs!
& I like the background quilt too, very lovely.

Here's a kind of off topic question- where did you get your Wheaten Marans?

Thank you. I actually got Wheaten Marans hatching eggs off eBay. I don't remember the seller's name though.

 

[EweSheep]

All are lovely!

Now you guys going to have to make a pedigree on your Olive Eggers! I would love to get one and have pictures of the parents and grandparents and be proud of them LOL!

 

[3chimama]

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Fun fun!!

 

[Happy Chooks]

My olive egger eggs under the broody are now on Day 6. She's getting more serious about the eggs, and she doesn't like me looking around her at the eggs. She's pecking me now (although it doesn't hurt - yet), but I'm not sure she's getting off the nest to eat.

So 2 more weeks to go.

Ruth......If I decide to get rid of Ford, I'll let you know. For now, he's staying where he is.

 

[ruth]

Here's one of my Olive Egger Roos - a young guy that I just put back in the pen. I think I mentioned I'm getting roos that look like pure BCMs but with the pea comb. I think this guy is one of the best looking roos I have. Until now I've always bred the blue hens that lay olive eggs back to a pure BCM male but I just put them in their own pen with a Wheaten male, and two Olive Egger roos (the second Olive Egger Roo can be seen in the last picture.