The Olive-Egger thread!

[browncow15]

So I just set some eggs from my flock. I've got an F1 OE roo (black copper maran x black americauna) over CCL. Will the chicks be sex linked?

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Sounds like you have a start! The first thing to know is egg color genes and how they work. Blue and Brown are dominant over white. Blue is a color that is actually laid down in the shell, and when you open a blue egg it's blue on the inside. Brown is a color that is coated on the shell, and when you open a brown egg it is white on the inside.

Your typical green laying EE is a bird that's been bred from a blue laying bird like an Ameraucana or a CCL; in other words a bird that has 2 copies of the blue egg gene, AND a brown egg layer. The brown coats the blue and you get a green egg. However, that means the EE has one copy of the blue egg gene and one white. If bred to a brown egg layer, 50% of the offspring will no longer have the blue egg gene and will lay brown eggs only.

Long story short, in order to ensure that your crosses lay olive eggs, you have to use birds with 2 copies of the blue egg gene. Your EEs will probably not have this, and definitely not your OE chicks. Only pure Ameraucanas, Arauacanas, and CCLs will. Anything you breed out of EEs and OEs you will have to wait until they lay to find out if they are OEs or actually brown egg layers.

So keep the Ameraucanas!

Isbars also have two blue egg genes though they lay green.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

So I just set some eggs from my flock. I've got an F1 OE roo (black copper maran x black americauna) over CCL. Will the chicks be sex linked?

Yes they will. Cockerels will have head spots and be barred, pullets will be solid black as chicks and may show more golden than copper in the hackles. Most will have crests if the legbar is crested (I assume so since you didn't say cream legbar but CCL).

 

[browncow15]

Yes they will.  Cockerels will have head spots and be barred, pullets will be solid black as chicks and may show more golden than copper in the hackles.  Most will have crests if the legbar is crested (I assume so since you didn't say cream legbar but CCL).

Sweet! I didn't know if the sex linking would hold true since the rooster is a cross. And yes the Legbar is crested but only a small one

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Sweet! I didn't know if the sex linking would hold true since the rooster is a cross. And yes the Legbar is crested but only a small one

Breed is not important, only color. Any solid colored cock/erel over a barred hen will be sexlinked.

 

[seventreesfarm]

Yeah not so dark on either count but nice speckles on the wellies, hopefully that comes thru on the olives.

I don't have wellies anymore, but miss those speckles. I keep hatching my best olive eggs with the best speckles, but for some reason that line isn't very robust and I don't get many chicks.

I sure wish someone could crack the code for self-replicating olivers! Right now I'm working on breeding & culling for a certain conformation with my marans & amers and don't have space to do any experiments with oliver roos. Someday though. I still hang on to any really exceptional boys until their sisters lay, just in case the genes are too good to waste. I'm having fun trying different crosses of my marans, amers and F1/2/3/4/etc hens with my amer and marans roos. It's hella hard to keep track of all the lineages though. You should see all my spreadsheets and leg band charts

 

[fatcatx]

The F3 will be losing the blue gene so then it would be time to work on only breeding hens that are laying blue eggs. The cockerels are harder because you cannot tell if there is a blue gene until the chicks grow up and start laying eggs.
You will need to use trap nesting and keep a lot of records to find males with the blue egg shell gene. This is why most breeders and hatcheries only use the first cross.
Have fun!

Originally Posted by StarMeKritten

If it is a cross between an olive egger (legbar marans cross) hen and a marans rooster, then there's about a 50% chance of olive eggs and a 50% chance of darker brown eggs.


Thanks for the help! Hatched some legbars with it so maybe I'll rehome it with a friend if it is a cockeral so I can see what the cross produces just for fun.

 

[VigilanteChick]

hello! I'm looking for some F2 or possibly F3 olive egger hatching eggs. I haven't seen any posted on the buy/sell/trade forum, so I thought I'd post here. I really love the deep and bright greens and would love to add a few to my flock. Thanks!

 

[bamadude]

hello!  I'm looking for some F2 or possibly F3 olive egger hatching eggs.  I haven't seen any posted on the buy/sell/trade forum, so I thought I'd post here.  I really love the deep and bright greens and would love to add a few to my flock.  Thanks!

@Junibutt sent me some F2 barnvelder x cream legbars. You could pm and ask

 

[Junibutt]

@Junibutt sent me some F2 barnvelder x cream legbars. You could pm and ask

@bamadude they are actually F2 Cream Legbar x Red Star (ISA Brown cross). F1 was bred back to the Cream Legbar rooster so all offsprings should lay green to Olive eggs, not sure how dark. Only you can tell. My F1 Cream Legbar x Barnevelders still have 12-16 weeks before they start laying.