The Olive-Egger thread!

[Blarneyeggs]

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 olive The 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.

Those are very nice eggs!

X2! Has anyone crossed back to blue after breeding in dark brown? I just keep covering my OEs with Marans to deepen the green, but thought it would be cool to cross back to a blue layer to see how that effects color.

 

[Penny Hen]

If you want single comb Olive Eggers you can breed them from Cream Legbars. I am thinking perhaps I may try to get a few Olive Eggers I am thinking I want a Welsummer Rooster for the cross cause I like colorful eggs and it might be good for me also I want to aim for Autosexing Olive Eggers that way they can help me pay for my other chickens =).

Very true I had spaced for a moment about that.

The hard part of that is already done by someone else!

I like the idea of incorporating the autosexing. That is just such a handy feature. That would also get the barring in that Seventreesfarm was talking about. But there is also a Creole (tri-colored barred) version of the Penedesenca, which lays an egg as dark as the Marans.

 

[ronott1]

Very true I had spaced for a moment about that.

The hard part of that is already done by someone else!

I like the idea of incorporating the autosexing. That is just such a handy feature. That would also get the barring in that Seventreesfarm was talking about. But there is also a Creole (tri-colored barred) version of the Penedesenca, which lays an egg as dark as the Marans.

Out here in California, we call the Crele Penedesenca x Cream Legbar Amelias, for Amelia Earhart since they are crazy flying chickens.

They lay very nice Green to olive eggs:



The top egg, bottom egg and the egg at the bottom left are from Amelias. The one on the top left is an EE X Marans.

I plan on breeding them back to Crele Penedesenca to see if I can get darker eggs and what percentage still have the Blue egg gene.

 

[Darkangael]

Out here in California, we call the Crele Penedesenca x Cream Legbar Amelias, for Amelia Earhart since they are crazy flying chickens.

They lay very nice Green to olive eggs:

The top egg, bottom egg and the egg at the bottom left are from Amelias. The one on the top left is an EE X Marans.

I plan on breeding them back to Crele Penedesenca to see if I can get darker eggs and what percentage still have the Blue egg gene.

I would be interested to know how that turns out. They are very pretty as is.

PS I like the spots on the amelia eggs

 

[ronott1]

I would be interested to know how that turns out. They are very pretty as is.

PS I like the spots on the amelia eggs

I might set up a pen for the NYD Hatch a long this weekend. They are laying now so I need to keep the lights going for them.

 

[Penny Hen]

Out here in California, we call the Crele Penedesenca x Cream Legbar Amelias, for Amelia Earhart since they are crazy flying chickens.

I love you blue stucco walls. Is that a hint to the chickens to hold onto those blue genes?

I have fallen in love with the olive color on the outside of the eggs and the blue on the inside. I am going to take an eggshell to the paint store and have them match the inside and outside colors. Blue for the walls and the olive brown for the trim.

 

[ronott1]

I love you blue stucco walls. Is that a hint to the chickens to hold onto those blue genes?

I have fallen in love with the olive color on the outside of the eggs and the blue on the inside. I am going to take an eggshell to the paint store and have them match the inside and outside colors. Blue for the walls and the olive brown for the trim.

Yes, that is funny!

The whole blue egg shell and brown coating confuses a lot of people. Cream colored eggs are not white shelled. A breed that lays cream colored eggs can have a hen laying a darker brown egg because they are really brown egg layers. Egg shells are either white or blue. Any other color has a brown coating.

 

[seventreesfarm]

X2!

Has anyone crossed back to blue after breeding in dark brown? I just keep covering my OEs with Marans to deepen the green, but thought it would be cool to cross back to a blue layer to see how that effects color.

I have one darkish-laying oliver in with my Am roo and her sister in with my BCM. Kind of like a controlled experiment, since they have the same parentage and lay identical eggs. Same with my dark red laying wellie crosses. I
know we're not supposed to count our eggs before they hatch, but it's hard not to get out there on the calendar with so many interesting combinations on my schedule.

I guess each of my OE-making pens (Am over BCM and BCM over Am) also have a secondary function with test crosses over my OEs. And once I get another OE roo worth crossing, I'll do the same with him. One reason I'm going to a cabinet incubator is to have room for hatching baskets so I can keep track of individual chicks from all these crosses

 

[seventreesfarm]

Very true I had spaced for a moment about that.

The hard part of that is already done by someone else!

I like the idea of incorporating the autosexing. That is just such a handy feature. That would also get the barring in that Seventreesfarm was talking about. But there is also a Creole (tri-colored barred) version of the Penedesenca, which lays an egg as dark as the Marans.

I might have to look into those, even though I'm a sucker for the Marans conformation. One thing I don't like about Ams is how light they are. I like the chunkiness the crosses have though. Our culls, cockerels and spent hens go in the soup pot, so meaty is nice if it doesn't affect laying. I'm also planning to move to trap nesting soon so I can track production and breed for that too.

 

[chicken pickin]

Here are pics from today of my 2 OE pullets and the Marans Roo Rebel they are paired up with. Violet is 24weeks and Eastie is about 17weeks In the pics im not sure which pullet is which lol. The chicks from them will be F2 OE








In the same coop with the Marans Rooster Rebel are these 2 pullets(hopefully green egg layers) They are Cream Legbar x Cochin and also conveniently they are sexlinks) This cross will be F1 OE