The Olive-Egger thread!

[Abundance Farm]

One more question: What happens with a Cream Legbar roo and a Blue Maran hen? Or a black copper hen? Love this thread! Does one parent have to be an Ameraucana?

 

[ronott1]

One more question: What happens with a Cream Legbar roo and a Blue Maran hen? Or a black copper hen? Love this thread! Does one parent have to be an Ameraucana?

The egg shell gene and brown coating genes are not sex linked so it does not matter which parent has a blue gene for the egg shell color.

You do not have to have ameraucana for the blue egg shell gene if you are using a Cream legbar.

The best thing is if the parent with the blue egg shell gene has two of them. Then all of the eggs will have a blue shell and will then get the brown paint color from the other parent. In that case, all of the eggs will be green.

Brown over blue = green. The darker the brown the closer the egg will be to olive green.

 

[thecreekhouse]

How old was your Olive Egger when she laid her first egg? My girl is between 8-10 months and has yet to pay. Of course she hatched late in the summer so it's basically been winter her whole life but I'm sure hoping she starts laying soon. Here's her photo. Her name is Wendy

 

[LisaLouHoo]

How old was your Olive Egger when she laid her first egg? My girl is between 8-10 months and has yet to pay. Of course she hatched late in the summer so it's basically been winter her whole life but I'm sure hoping she starts laying soon. Here's her photo. Her name is Wendy

Wendy is lovely!! She's got to be real close. Gee Whiz, nothing like keeping you waiting! My OE hen hatched beginning of June and laid her first egg in December.

 

[Heron's Nest Farm]

This is my first OE that I have bred. she (hopefully) is from an americana and a chocolate orpington. Not a lot of brow going on in that dad, but I am hopeful.

I have 2 OE roos right now. Cuckoo Maran x Americana. One is BIG and has more of the americana build. The other looks like the cuckoo maran. ANy thoughts on who might be a better keep?

 

[Bushmansbliss]

I really enjoy the colored eggs but i didn't get birds based on egg color they would lay. I have a free range project using American gamefowl and my rooster happened to be the first rooster on an all gamefowl farm to have a beard in the past 5-6 years. I've hatched around 300 eggs from him and his hens and all were normal except for one hens chicks. She is some sort of Spanish gamefowl cross and lays large light Brown eggs which are so light they are almost white. She hatched 13 birds this spring/summer 10 of which she raised to maturity. 4 roosters and 6 pullets. Of the 6 pullets raised 2 lay beautiful sage green eggs, 2 lay mint green, 1 lays light blue and the other lays a very light brown like her mother.

I had been wondering what was going on with the genetics at play here and reading this thread helped me understand it more then I expected to. Thank you all for your knowledge and experience.

Any thoughts on it would be appreciated. I thought this was an interesting chicken experience, hopefully others will too.

I'll post pics in a bit of who I have them of.

 

[Bushmansbliss]

Rooster

Mother hen

Bird on right is daughter. She has an identical sister and two more that look like her but with no beard, and one more that looks like her in body form and beard but has a wild type patterning.

 

[Bushmansbliss]

I'll have to get pics of the other siblings and their eggs tomorrow.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

This is my first OE that I have bred. she (hopefully) is from an americana and a chocolate orpington. Not a lot of brow going on in that dad, but I am hopeful.

I have 2 OE roos right now. Cuckoo Maran x Americana. One is BIG and has more of the americana build. The other looks like the cuckoo maran. ANy thoughts on who might be a better keep?

I'm no expert on cuckoo Marans, but this chick looks to be a barred bird (that looks like a head spot in this photo...). Any chance the sire is the cuckoo Marans cock/erel?

 

[Cluck Wild Farm]

Hi all, I recently hatched out some second generation OE chicks. The moms were both first generation OE hens (half Ameracauna, half Marans) and the dad is a Black Copper Marans. All the chicks look identical to BCM chicks, they even have a standard comb - does this mean they won't produce olive colored eggs? I read somewhere, perhaps in this thread, that a standard comb means they only carry the dark brown egg gene, and a pea comb is synonymous with olive egg layers. Any help is appreciated, I'm new to this whole breeding and hatching thing.