The Olive-Egger thread!

[unkadan]

Hello fellow BYC'ers! I have a question: I am a small hobbiest chicken breeder and each year I try to make my stock better for standards that apply but moslty vibrant egg colors. Apparently my dark egg line bred BC Marans roosters from last season made some F1 OE's with my blue wheaten ameraucana hens for this year to be used to go back to my newer even now more dark egg gene carrying BC marans roosters... All sounds good right? Well to my surprise these F1 olive eggers I made this fall are laying as dark in my oppinion F2 eggs are supposed to be! So what do I do stop at F1's??? I would hate for my F2's to be so dark they look like marans eggs!please any thoughts, tips or suggestions would be highly appreciated!thanks in advance!

pictures please

 

[Bleenie]

Does anyone have any fertile eggs for sale or that they'd be willing to sell? I'm not looking for specific colors, the more colorful the better, make's the hatch exciting! All I want is big beards and olive eggs, so i'm not real interested in 1st generation crosses.

My current girls are white with black flecking, buff laced and a sort-of BLR coloration.

Please PM me with pics and price if you'd be willing to sell some eggs, just want some more olive's in the flock

 

[DMRippy]

Does anyone have any fertile eggs for sale or that they'd be willing to sell? I'm not looking for specific colors, the more colorful the better, make's the hatch exciting! All I want is big beards and olive eggs, so i'm not real interested in 1st generation crosses.

My current girls are white with black flecking, buff laced and a sort-of BLR coloration.

Please PM me with pics and price if you'd be willing to sell some eggs, just want some more olive's in the flock

Why not first gen? I have not had any luck with 2nd gen... they are ALL OVER THE PLACE in color.... but MORE dark than Olive. The Olive I get from first crosses are what I like best. If I do 2nd gen anymore it will be to cuckoos so it is not as dark as a Marans. PLUS you are more likely to get straight combs and less beard. Unless you find someone with Olive Eggers that breed kinda true it is a crap shoot on Olive Eggers Every time.

 

[Roosterfry]

I've had trouble with site since the new changes. I am unable to post pictures. But if you text me your email address I can email them to you and you can post them for me, 662-934-2588 I was just hoping to get my question answered

 

[Little Wing]

Hey guys. I've been lurking on this thread for a while and thought I would share a few pics of my OEs. They are 1st gen from Black and Lav Ameraucana roos and Black and Blue Copper Marans hens.
Donna, I'm sorry you are not having good results with your 2nd Gen. I am confused now. That was my plan, to breed the hens back to Marans for a darker olive. I haven't seen an egg from mine yet so I really don't know what I will need to do to improve them or if I will even want to. Does anyone have OEs that breed true? Is it possible?

 

[maryhysong]

why not breed OE to OE? Wouldn't that give a nice olive without making it darker/browner?

 

[DMRippy]

why not breed OE to OE? Wouldn't that give a nice olive without making it darker/browner?

That might work best once you get the color eggs you want. They might breed true for egg color.

Part of the problem is 1/2 genes in each bird. You don't really know what half they got. Most pure breeds have 2 copies of traits that make them the breed they are like beards and muffs. So if you want to breed Olive Eggers with beards and muffs you would breed 2 with beards and muffs together, but only a SMALL percent would have the DOUBLE genes to breed true. Same holds true for egg color, problem is you don't really know and can't test for the ones with 2 copies of the blue egg genes or 2 copies of the dark egg genes. It is a long term project with lots of culling to get them to breed true. I know some have worked long and hard on it and may have achieved their goals. One day I may take on this breeding true project. Some of my goals would be beards and muffs, feathered legs and a few other things I have up my sleeve. I would also like to have autosexing Olive Eggers.... but that is a different project.

 

[mstricer]

Your babies have nice breads

 

[maryhysong]

That might work best once you get the color eggs you want. They might breed true for egg color.

Part of the problem is 1/2 genes in each bird. You don't really know what half they got. Most pure breeds have 2 copies of traits that make them the breed they are like beards and muffs. So if you want to breed Olive Eggers with beards and muffs you would breed 2 with beards and muffs together, but only a SMALL percent would have the DOUBLE genes to breed true. Same holds true for egg color, problem is you don't really know and can't test for the ones with 2 copies of the blue egg genes or 2 copies of the dark egg genes. It is a long term project with lots of culling to get them to breed true. I know some have worked long and hard on it and may have achieved their goals. One day I may take on this breeding true project. Some of my goals would be beards and muffs, feathered legs and a few other things I have up my sleeve. I would also like to have autosexing Olive Eggers.... but that is a different project.

beards muffs and feathered legs; that will be quite a bird! I have a bunch of EE of different ages, this is my first time with them. Lots of different colors out there. One is an EE roo over a black australorp hen, I'm thinking she might lay a slight olive tint, hopefully she'll start laying soon. When my BCM grow up I will use then over the EE so maybe I'll have a fun pen of OE next year

 

[DMRippy]

Quote: It will just be a green egg without the dark egg genes. Still looks good in your egg basket.

I have already made them once. Here is one... he looked like a copper marans except his type was more Am and he had a beard and muffs too. He was a mean one though.



This guy is a brother to the above roo. They were the same age but I don't have a recent picture of him. He was SOOOOO PRETTY. Solid Black with green sheen. He was nice and not mean. I sold all my 2nd gen olive eggers. I will start some new projects soon.