The Olive-Egger thread!

[mike184]

I have a few olive egger hens that are BCM rooster over an EE. I have a couple (blue) grey roos. Is there any benefit to keeping one of the roos? Kinda new at the OE's, do the OE roos have a olive egg color gene, or would it be either dark brown gene, or blue gene? Does that make sense lol? Just ordered some welsummer hatching eggs!!! Id like to have some speckled olive eggs sometime next year

.

Here's a couple of my clean faced OE pullets. They are around 12 weeks old

 

[acemario]

Thank you! I've been very pleased with this cross thus far. I LOVE that they're sex linked. It's so convenient. It'll be a tough call when my current batch of legbars are completely mature- do I put them with the FBCM for sex linked OE? Or do I put them with the legbar rooster for autosexing purebreds? Decisions, decisions.

Sol2Go, I'll definitely keep you posted on how the size goes as they grow. They've been laying less than a month, and two have only started in the last couple weeks. Today I got three eggs. They were 36 g, 44 g and 45 g. This is only the second time I've gotten three olives in a single day, so I suspect the 36 g egg is from a hen just barely starting out.

Sphinx! Awesome eggs. I wish my OEs wouldn't have ALL been roosters! How rude of them!


Also, I just got a purebread Wheaten Ameraucana hen to put under my FBCM rooster! Olive Eggers here I come... at least when spring rolls around... haha.

 

[chicken pickin]

Im new to this thread and have a lot to read through. I have a bcm rooster and cross him with my blue and green egg laying EE. I have been hatching my own OE chicks for about 5 months now. but the chicks always go so quickly I havent seen any of my own chicks to point of lay. I decided that is a no good way to sell OE chicks, to not be aware of the egg color so I have held on to 2 chicks one of which I am almost postive is a pullet at 8 weeks old an the other just hatched and is almost 2 weeks old(hoping pullet also) Im done hatching for the year, my last batch of eggs are due to hatch tomorrow(Cream Legar X SLCochin). I will take pics today of my 2 OE chicks.

Has anyone else encountered all their OE chicks hatching out just one color. All my chicks hatch out solid black, everyone of them. The only way to tell them apart from the Marans is that the OEs are clean legged and some are puffy cheeked.


This is Violet at about 8 weeks old


This is my almost 2 week old OE chick unnamed

Hopefully both pullets

 

[jesirose]

I have a few olive egger hens that are BCM rooster over an EE. I have a couple (blue) grey roos. Is there any benefit to keeping one of the roos? Kinda new at the OE's, do the OE roos have a olive egg color gene, or would it be either dark brown gene, or blue gene? Does that make sense lol? Just ordered some welsummer hatching eggs!!! Id like to have some speckled olive eggs sometime next year

.

There is definitely benefit to keeping him if you want to work on your own line of OE. Here's my basic understanding of how the egg color genes work: There's a number of genes that determine the egg color. Some of them are for blue, and some are for brown. If they have NONE, it's a white egg. If they have blue, a blue egg. Brown, a brown egg. Both brown AND blue, a green egg. How many of each of the types determines the darkness.

If you like the color of his sister's eggs, and the looks of him, I'd say breed him to a bird that has another quality you want to add to your OE, or doesn't have one you want to remove, and see how the offspring turn out. The only problem is it takes so long to get eggs to see how well it worked if you are going for egg color

I suspect out of my 9 OE, 2 are cockerels. They're only 2 weeks so more might become obvious. I'll probably keep one of these, and I'll be using my cream legbars and marans along with that roo to work on my own line.

 

[Peach2u]

Im new to this thread and have a lot to read through. I have a bcm rooster and cross him with my blue and green egg laying EE. I have been hatching my own OE chicks for about 5 months now. but the chicks always go so quickly I havent seen any of my own chicks to point of lay. I decided that is a no good way to sell OE chicks, to not be aware of the egg color so I have held on to 2 chicks one of which I am almost postive is a pullet at 8 weeks old an the other just hatched and is almost 2 weeks old(hoping pullet also) Im done hatching for the year, my last batch of eggs are due to hatch tomorrow(Cream Legar X SLCochin). I will take pics today of my 2 OE chicks.

Has anyone else encountered all their OE chicks hatching out just one color. All my chicks hatch out solid black, everyone of them. The only way to tell them apart from the Marans is that the OEs are clean legged and some are puffy cheeked.

BCM is a dominate black feather creator. My first year using a Splash maran roo over my EE's all my hatches where blue. The next 2 year I used a blue copper maran over my OE and EE'. The babies where black,blue and splash. This year I used a roo from the splash maran roo over EE. He is blue in color. I have been getting a good mix of color this year. Half have been chipmunk, the rest black and blue. Out of the 43 chicks so far this year I have 2 splash babies. So until you breed the offspring OE to a non black hen you will not get any other color except the black blue and maybe a splash if one of the BCM had a blue parent that the parent came from a splash.

But, I was willing to have black and blue chickens in order to get olive eggs. I have just bred most of the black out this year and now will have more OE that have colors than black/blue. I for see this being an on going project for me. But then I like genetics and being able to trace a trait back down the line to keep or cull it. All the while collecting nice eggs that people are on waiting list around me wanting for eating or hatching. Which I have fallen behind. I had 6 of my 18 hens broody at once. Summer is fading and the first 2 broody's are now back to laying. But then I have a new girl who is sitting on eggs as of last night.

I have 3 BCM hens and all 3 went broody this year. With 7 broody hens this year, I'm hoping to keeping 10 new girls and 1 new roo.
Any extras will be sold to help with the winter feed bill.

 

[mstricer]

Thank you! I've been very pleased with this cross thus far. I LOVE that they're sex linked. It's so convenient. It'll be a tough call when my current batch of legbars are completely mature- do I put them with the FBCM for sex linked OE? Or do I put them with the legbar rooster for autosexing purebreds? Decisions, decisions. Sol2Go, I'll definitely keep you posted on how the size goes as they grow. They've been laying less than a month, and two have only started in the last couple weeks. Today I got three eggs. They were 36 g, 44 g and 45 g. This is only the second time I've gotten three olives in a single day, so I suspect the 36 g egg is from a hen just barely starting out.

Sphinx! Awesome eggs. I wish my OEs wouldn't have ALL been roosters! How rude of them! Also, I just got a purebread Wheaten Ameraucana hen to put under my FBCM rooster! Olive Eggers here I come... at least when spring rolls around... haha.

I also have wheaten AM but I will be putting them under my wheaten Marans. I have two OE's laying beautiful olive eggs that will be under home also. See what I get.

 

[ronott1]

There is definitely benefit to keeping him if you want to work on your own line of OE. Here's my basic understanding of how the egg color genes work: There's a number of genes that determine the egg color. Some of them are for blue, and some are for brown. If they have NONE, it's a white egg. If they have blue, a blue egg. Brown, a brown egg. Both brown AND blue, a green egg. How many of each of the types determines the darkness.

If you like the color of his sister's eggs, and the looks of him, I'd say breed him to a bird that has another quality you want to add to your OE, or doesn't have one you want to remove, and see how the offspring turn out. The only problem is it takes so long to get eggs to see how well it worked if you are going for egg color

I suspect out of my 9 OE, 2 are cockerels. They're only 2 weeks so more might become obvious. I'll probably keep one of these, and I'll be using my cream legbars and marans along with that roo to work on my own line.

It is a bit more complicated since there are two sets of genes--one for the shell color and one for the coating. If you crack open an OE egg, the green will be on the outside but the inside shell color will be blue. The brown is like a paint. To get an Olive colored egg, you need dark brown outside genes and blue egg shell genes. Then there are Sex linked and dominant recessive genes to all of this.

I have an OE that misses all or part of the brown outer layer, so sometimes it is blue and sometime is to green. every once in a while it is half blue and half green on the outside.

 

[Bleenie]

Hey everyone, Just wanted to drop in and share a few pictures of one of my hens. I'm not real sure exactly what "breed" category to post her under but I did share a pic of her in the Wyandotte thread. She is 3/4 Wyandotte but lays a very pretty Olive-colored egg. She just started laying


Front Left in this picture.

I'm pretty-much over the moon about her laying olive eggs. I've had my fingers crossed from day 1 for her to be an OE but with the Wyandotte look & buff lacing. Her papa had to go live at a friends house after an incident with my niece but hopefully I'll be able to bring him home after a little while and set him up with this one's momma so I can try for some more buff laced, rose comb, OE's.

Here's her momma(BL) next to her aunt(red/blue) with her in the front. And then a picture of papa.

 

[Penny Hen]

BCM is a dominate black feather creator. My first year using a Splash maran roo over my EE's all my hatches where blue. The next 2 year I used a blue copper maran over my OE and EE'. The babies where black,blue and splash. This year I used a roo from the splash maran roo over EE. He is blue in color. I have been getting a good mix of color this year. Half have been chipmunk, the rest black and blue. Out of the 43 chicks so far this year I have 2 splash babies. So until you breed the offspring OE to a non black hen you will not get any other color except the black blue and maybe a splash if one of the BCM had a blue parent that the parent came from a splash.

But, I was willing to have black and blue chickens in order to get olive eggs. I have just bred most of the black out this year and now will have more OE that have colors than black/blue. I for see this being an on going project for me. But then I like genetics and being able to trace a trait back down the line to keep or cull it. All the while collecting nice eggs that people are on waiting list around me wanting for eating or hatching. Which I have fallen behind. I had 6 of my 18 hens broody at once. Summer is fading and the first 2 broody's are now back to laying. But then I have a new girl who is sitting on eggs as of last night.

I have 3 BCM hens and all 3 went broody this year. With 7 broody hens this year, I'm hoping to keeping 10 new girls and 1 new roo.
Any extras will be sold to help with the winter feed bill.

See I find that I like the black ones. Especially the smooth faced ones because they remind me of crows. I have 2 of of the Marans/Ameraucana that I supposed would be labeled as blue but do not look blue but slate. One of my pullets has the copper feathers on her neck along with the black. The slight blueness in these pictures is from the blue glow of my computer screen.

 

[ronott1]

See I find that I like the black ones. Especially the smooth faced ones because they remind me of crows. I have 2 of of the Marans/Ameraucana that I supposed would be labeled as blue but do not look blue but slate. One of my pullets has the copper feathers on her neck along with the black. The slight blueness in these pictures is from the blue glow of my computer screen.

Yes, I like black ones too!

My two black ones seem to have feather quality issues though.