The Olive-Egger thread!

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
So, did you cross & hatch him? I'm curious about what the parents are (breed & color). I'm about to set some eggs from my FBC Marans hens who are bred with a Splash Ameraucana. Not sure how they will turn out--do I see feathered legs on Ford? I'm curious if the leg feathering is maternal or paternal--anyone know? Or is it just a crapshoot?

If you have been on BYC a while, you may be familiar with Ruth's olive eggers. (haven't seen her on here in quite a while now) She has beautiful olive eggs, but charged like $100 for a dozen. (too steep for my blood) From what I understand, hers are a product of Marans/Ameraucana, but I'm not 100% sure on it. Anyhow, Mary (the Warden here) bought some eggs from her and hatched him with 2 BCM's from Gabbard Farms. When we split an order of Ameraucana's, she gave me him and the BCM's (they were 2 weeks old at the time) with the Ameraucana's I bought. I had hopes that he would be a pullet, but no such luck. I think he's gorgeous, and I'm curious what his babies will look like, so I'm planning on keeping him and breeding him to both my Ameraucana's and BCM's and see what the pullets will lay. And yes, he has feathering on his shanks.

Did you follow that? Sounds like a soap opera, huh?

If you cross a BCM with a Splash Ameraucana you should get blue babies possibly with copper leakage, pea combs and feathered legs. I'm a total sucker for blue chickens, so I say go for it!

 

[livin-green]

Quote:
So, did you cross & hatch him? I'm curious about what the parents are (breed & color). I'm about to set some eggs from my FBC Marans hens who are bred with a Splash Ameraucana. Not sure how they will turn out--do I see feathered legs on Ford? I'm curious if the leg feathering is maternal or paternal--anyone know? Or is it just a crapshoot?

If you have been on BYC a while, you may be familiar with Ruth's olive eggers. (haven't seen her on here in quite a while now) She has beautiful olive eggs, but charged like $100 for a dozen. (too steep for my blood) From what I understand, hers are a product of Marans/Ameraucana, but I'm not 100% sure on it. Anyhow, Mary (the Warden here) bought some eggs from her and hatched him with 2 BCM's from Gabbard Farms. When we split an order of Ameraucana's, she gave me him and the BCM's (they were 2 weeks old at the time) with the Ameraucana's I bought. I had hopes that he would be a pullet, but no such luck. I think he's gorgeous, and I'm curious what his babies will look like, so I'm planning on keeping him and breeding him to both my Ameraucana's and BCM's and see what the pullets will lay. And yes, he has feathering on his shanks.

Did you follow that? Sounds like a soap opera, huh?

If you cross a BCM with a Splash Ameraucana you should get blue babies possibly with copper leakage, pea combs and feathered legs. I'm a total sucker for blue chickens, so I say go for it!

I'm not familiar with Ruth--haven't been super active on BYC. But, I think I followed it--he's a cross, most likely a Marans/Amer. but not sure. Dang! He's pretty, so I'd love to know positively. Oh, well. Now, if you breed him back to an Amer. or BCM, what should you end up with? A 2nd generation olive-egger?

I'm so lovin' what you're saying about a BCM & Splash Amer. cross--that is exactly what I'm hoping for!!

Now I'm even more inspired to get the incubator fired up and get some eggs set!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Yes, his offspring would be a 2nd generation olive eggers. (hopefully) I'm not sure whether to cross him to blue egg genes or dark egg genes (since he doesn't lay eggs

) so I'm going to do both and see what colors I get for the eggs.

 

[livin-green]

For some reason I'm thinking someone mentioned to me that the roo has the more dominate egg color gene...??? Not sure if that is right or not--anyone know?

 

[Happy Chooks]

As far as I understand it, it doesn't matter which is the roo and which is the hen. But this is all fairly new, so who knows!

 

[Lensters]

Quote:
An old wive's tail. The only thing that is more dominate with a roo's genetics is the impact on future generations because his genes have are in every egg, not just 1/hens eggs.

 

[technodoll]

Stupid question... has anyone ever had olive eggers by crossing production sexlink hens who lay dark brown eggs with an EE roo who has the blue/green egg gene?

I hatched a few girls last March and they are absolutely gorgeous... just wondering if any of them might possibly lay olive eggs come autumn?

 

[Lensters]

Quote:
I have a sexlink hen who is from a Welsummer roo over a Cuckoo Marans hen. I use her in creating my Olive Eggers. I have some of my "special whites" that lay darker tan eggs but they aren't approaching the darkness of a Maran or Welsummer egg so I'm guessing your egg will be more like pea green as opposed to olive drab.

 

[technodoll]

Quote:
I have a sexlink hen who is from a Welsummer roo over a Cuckoo Marans hen. I use her in creating my Olive Eggers. I have some of my "special whites" that lay darker tan eggs but they aren't approaching the darkness of a Maran or Welsummer egg so I'm guessing your egg will be more like pea green as opposed to olive drab.

Someday, my dream is to own a breeder-quality dark egg layer... someday

In the meantime I have to use what I have and hope to see something cool come out of the mix! I don't care what color/tint of green the eggs may turn out to be, everything's awesome as long as it's not brown or white or cream

(although I may get stuck with plain pale brown eggs, oh well).

 

[Imagesoart]

I have hatched my Olive eggers! I crossed a BCM with a Americana. I will post pictures of them in a day or two. I hatched 4 of them and they are about one month old now. They are starting to get more brown in them. I was thinking that my BCM showed that he was a roo rather early, so I am hoping that I will be able to tell who's a roo and who's a hen early. My friend hatched three under her broody hen.