The Olive-Egger thread!

[haTHOR]

I have read before that some of you OE breeders are finding that it isn't rare to have a straight combed pullet who lays an olive egg. (I just found my straight combed girl is laying an olive egg too).

Conventional wisdom is that a pea comb is highly correlated with the blue egg gene (about 95%) and we know that OEs are carrying a blue gene (as well as a brown gene). Yet in OEs lots and lots of us seem to have pullets that just happen to be part of the 5% that we could assume would lay a blue-gened egg (including OE) *without* a pea comb. Your thoughts?

 

[dinahmoe]

hi guys,
just wandering if ya'll can tell me what would be the best cross for my blue wheaten olive egger roo and what colored eggs i could expect from the offspring?


he is from a Black copper hen and blue wheaten ameraucana rooster
1.regular brown eggers-RIR,rocks,Etc.
2.Easter eggers-all of my EEs are from an ameraucana roo and various brown eggers.
3.olive eggers-same as him-ameraucana roo and black copper hens.same hatch as him and lay nice olive eggs.

i know they will all be EEs of some sort but need info to give buyers.
thanks
D

 

[Lark Rise]

Wow, Dinahmoe, your roos are gorgeous! Are they from the same batch of eggs you sent me? See post # 3536 for pics. Here are some of the OE eggs I'm getting from them.

 

[dinahmoe]

Wow, Dinahmoe, your roos are gorgeous! Are they from the same batch of eggs you sent me? See post # 3536 for pics. Here are some of the OE eggs I'm getting from them.

beautiful eggs you got there.
yes,the blue is from the same as yours.the other one is a wheaten ameraucana.i just don't know if i need to keep him,but he is blue and i love blue.i may just have to get another coop built this summer.
the blue one looks just like his daddy except he has feathered white legs.i have some girls that lay just like yours-sisters ,aren't they fun to gather up.
your girls are very pretty,he would match nicely with them.lol

 

[Illia]

My OE hens all look like this. When they hatched, all the girls were yellow and the one boy was black. I'm guessing they were sex-linked. (Blue Wheaten Am. roo x Mossy Marans hens)






They are with a BCM roo now and I'm incubating 6 of their eggs now....I can't wait to see how they turn out.

The reason you got such odds is because all your Mossy Marans hens were carrying recessive Wheaten. It isn't a sex-linked thing, you just got good odds. The one black guy there is actually your one chick that turned out how he should have, as Wheaten is normally recessive to Black Copper (crowwing) but since you've got Wheaten carrying BCM hens and a Wheaten Am male, you've got a lot of Wheaten OE gals.

I need to pull photos to post, but I'm wondering if anyone has ever had this happen. I crossed a Blue-Copper Marans roo over blue or splash Ameraucana hens. I had two very dark blues and a blonde chick hatch. I now have a really dark blue, a blue, and another light blue! Has anyone ever had a blonde chick turn blue?!? I didn't think that was possible--could it be that the chick is actually a splash but with so much blue that you just really can't tell it??

Is he a boy or girl? It may be that he's a rather dark splash, yes, or maybe that there's more in her/him than just an E/E splash.

So I have hatched a few first generation Olive-Eggers. They are from an Araucana x Marans cross. I am curious if any one else using this combination have had the same thing. The chicks that are rump-less do not seem to have much on the feathered legs. I want rump-less with feathered legs. Anyone else running into this? I have only hatched a few. Not enough to tell if this is what I will get normally Here is my 13 week old cockerel. He is tailed so he will not stick around. He is already crowing and has a solid little body.

Here is my rump-less girl. Very lite on the leg feathers...

Congrats on doing Araucana based OE's! Your tailed boy looks identical to one I hatched out last spring, the rumpless girl looks like a few rumpless black pullets I've hatched out last year and this year. The feathering though has nothing to do with Araucanas or rumpless vs tailed, it has to do with the Marans parents, their feathering amount/quality and genes. ALL my Araucana based OE's have poor feathering because I tend to hatch ones out of parents with not the most abundant leg feathering, however, you shouldn't expect too much regardless. Only a couple of my Marans hens throw good feathering, as they've got some pretty heavy feathering themselves. Otherwise, I often just get stubs or a couple patches on the shanks.

If you've got such around, a fun thing to do is either A) try and get yourself a rumpless, tufted OE or B) breed a duckwing Araucana x Wheaten Marans. Makes some nice colored OE's.

Right now I'm having fun with some truly barred Olive Eggers, courtesy of my Blue Cuckoo Araucana, as well as some really interesting partridge/pencilled/duckwing looking OE's, have no clue at this stage what to really call them, but, they're neat and an honest mystery. They were born brown, came from BCM x Columbian/Pattern-gene carrying duckwing Araucana, were supposed to be black, but grew up so far to be pencilled up and down the body with a silver necklace although golden in color and are now also developing a salmon breast as if a duckwing. They're both girls, tailed, and keepers!

 

[poularde]

Oooh Illia. You must share some pics sometime. I for one would love to see some of your OE's.

 

[Illia]

I know, I took some today but my computer can't accept my camera card so I'm waiting on tomorrow to upload them via a different computer.

By the way I just have to ask, what is that rumpless but well-barred bird in your avatar? BR x Araucana or something else? The rump is quite short, and saddle looks too nice to be a first gen mutt.

 

[poularde]

That is my Barred Rock boy, Bug. I adore him. I plan on using him for future projects.

 

[Illia]

So he's rumpless? How adorable!


ETA - Don't be too surprised if he doesn't give you anything though. I had a huge rumpless Sussex girl and she sadly never gave me any fertile eggs. Bred her both to Araucanas and tailed birds, nothing.

 

[poularde]

hmmmm... I have not tested him out yet. He is still pretty young. I hope he is fertile. He acts fertile!