The Olive-Egger thread!

[Lark Rise]

Illia wrote:
Quote:
I really don't know anything about chicken genetics, but is that why the hen above lays a blue/green egg and not olive?

 

[Illia]

Illia wrote:

I really don't know anything about chicken genetics, but is that why the hen above lays a blue/green egg and not olive?

If the hen above is a first gen Olive Egger, from the same batch, I'd say your BC Marans hens aren't purebred. . . . Normally first gen Olive Eggers have serious Marans traits, she has none at all, and have some kind of green color. That's a straight up blue egg. Beautiful too.

No plumage color affects egg color, however it can determine the purity of a breed when you have egg color mysteries.

 

[cmitchell]

Is an olive egger the same as an easter egger except that it lays eggs that are an olive shade or is it an actual breed?

 

[DMRippy]

Is an olive egger the same as an easter egger except that it lays eggs that are an olive shade or is it an actual breed?

Yes you are right, not a breed but a cross. It is a cross of a blue egg layer (ee or pure breed) with a dark egg layer like a Marans. You can get all kinds of pretty shades of green.

 

[Illia]

It's an Easter Egger (not a breed) but a special kind that originates from crossing a dark egg layer with a blue or green egg layer, resulting in an olive egg, and in future generations resulting in a deep avacado/olive green, or a weird greenish choclatey color, or a golden brown color, and so on. . .


The main thing is, it's an EE but with dark laying parents. Which, is something a lot don't understand, as the trend these days is crossing any brown layer (like Orpingtons for example) with a blue or green layer and calling them Olive Eggers. Originally, it has been from crossing something like Marans or Welsummers with blue/green eggers.

 

[cmitchell]

Thank you Illia and DMRippy!

I have EE hens that were bought as chicks at a feed store, labeled as "Americana", of course

. There is at least one, maybe more, that lay eggs the color of the darkest green eggs on Illia's avatar picture. Would she/they be olive eggers?

 

[Illia]

I'd call her an Easter Egger. The darkest green in my avatar is actually from an EE, but, most F1 Olive Eggers actually do lay just the same green shade that EE's from normal brown x blue do. The EE who laid that darker green egg there came from a New Hampshire x Araucana breeding. At first I thought my OE's were laying when I found her first eggs, but, they were from my Easter Egger.

 

[cmitchell]

Tomorrow I will take some good natural light photos of the different green and blue/green eggs I have (I've got 4 dozen of them right now) and post them here asap. Would it be possible to breed OEs with regular feed store EEs? Out of about 17 chicks I ended up with about half roos, half hens.

 

[mikeypalone]

I have chicks from an ameraucana roo x black marans hen, how,when they are old enough,what breed of roo would i breed these back to keep the olive egg color?

 

[Lark Rise]

I have a pen of hens without a rooster. I have a Black Ameraucana roo that I was thinking of putting with them. The hens are golden cuckoo marans, welsummer, BO, RIR, EE, GLW, BR, Delaware, Brown Leghorn. It occurred to me that some of those eggs would yield OEs. Would the rest be labeled EE? Thanks.