Red Stars will breed back to the base stock for looks. The eggs would be a light green. It takes a very dark egg layer to make olive.
This link didn't work for me but I have seen the video. VERY funny...because it's TRUE!
Those are very nice eggs!I was reading about New Hampshires when I bought the eggs, and it seems they were used in developing many of the production/sex-link varieties. I only have one pullet laying now, and it's a fairly light egg, but I'm wondering if that production thing would kick in with a Marans/New Hampshire cross, which I could then cross to a blue egger and maybe an olive-carrying roo.
I am also compulsively playing with the chicken calculator. I even went so far as to spend $130 on the guy's book
Right now I don't have any barred/cuckoo in my flock, but I really like some of the patterns I could get if I bring a Cuckoo marans roo in. We'll see. I only want maybe 4 roos, so I can't have too many experiments going.
Lots of test breeding for sure. I'm glad to have a few sister pairs to test out, but even full sisters lay different eggs sometimes. I plan to try certain hens with both roos, but some only make sense to cross with one roo.
If push comes to shove, I guess I would give up my New Hampshires, even though they come from really good lines.
Here's a few of my eggs. The lighting is terrible out in my shop after dark, but they're oliveThe tan one is New Hamp, upper red one is BCM, lower red one is an OE/Wellie cross. The lower pale green one is from an OE/OE cross. The larger olive one on the left is from a BCM/EE cross, and the 2 olive eggs next to that one are her daughters with an OE roo (BCM/EE cross). The olive egg middle right is from a pullet that looks like an Ameraucana, and I'm not sure who her parents are.
The 2 red egg layers and one of the speckled olive layers are in with my Am roo. The rest are in with my blue copper guy, along with some Am hens.
I am working on developing an Olive Egger that will have a distinctive color pattern much different than the handful that is well known. I have been playing with the Kippen Jungle calculator and have discovered that their are some striking patterns possible that almost no breed (in the U.S at least) breeds for. The Olive Eggers lay such a distinctive egg it only seems right that they develop their own look apart from the common patterns. My Olive Eggers are Marran/Am cross. The most common crosses after that seem to be Welsummer/Am and Pendenesca/Am.
Peacombs are linked to the blue gene and usually a single comb means you have "lost" the blue gene (i.e. when the DNA chain is "unzipped" to make the 2 ova or 2 sperm the half that you got didn't have the Blue gene). Think of it like a game of Red Rover. There were always those kids who it was so tough to break their hand grip on each other. This is the peacomb gen and the blue egg gene. So Peacombs are a must unless you really want to breed 1000 or more birds to establish it in a single comb version. Now personally for me I want to keep the beards and muffs so that would mean that all the roos must be fully bearded. If you had a fine clean faced hen who laid a deep colored egg and had good body form then by no means cull her but to keep the beards and muffs the roos will need to be full beards. Important too is (in my opinion of course) is the ability o forage and a general robustness of health. These they have naturally at the moment but if the gene pool is narrowed to establish a series of color patterns it could be lost if you are only thinking about breeding for the color.
These are some of the unusual patterns that could be bred for. I came up with these working from the phenotypes (outward appearance) of my chickens. Only breeding and hatching will confirm that I have all the genes guessed right because for instance there are 3 gene that can give the Lemon color and 2 melanizing genes that you only need one or the other get lacing. Also there are at least 4 ways to get black. So even with the calculator test breeding will be an important part of things.
