The Olive-Egger thread!

[Blarneyeggs]

I got some new pictures of my roo now that he is all decked out in his new feathers. I named him Long John Silver thinking he was a silver duckwing until this last moult when the hackles and saddle came in with a lemon tint meaning he was gold based with a dilution gene. According to Kippen Jungle there are 3 genes that can give the pale yellow phenotype but since I don't know which one I am just going to call him a Lemon Duckwing. But I am not changing his name. He is so swashbuckling that he is keeping his pirate name.



One of the things that surprised me about getting these pictures is how fast he realized this was "all about him" and he lost his nervousness and started posing. I also love that for a change I was able to catch the irridecence of his feathers. His wing has that deep blue stripe of the duckwing pattern but his tail color is more deep teal than beetle green. First I thought it was just a eye trick with the color but when my other roo who is a black-breasted red pattern with the deep green tail stands right next to him you can see that John Silvers tail tints into the blue-green range

Swashbuckling! Bwahahaha! LOVE IT! beautiful boy.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

Bare with me here and the terrible photography. These chicks hatched September 15th, making them, oh about 8 weeks? I'm thinking that the chick at 1 o'clock is a cockerel as 'he' has the tell tail orange/brown coloring on the wing coverts. The chick at 8 o'clock, I think has more 'all over' orangey brown coloring coming in with the blue. I'm wondering if I'm just seeing what I would like to see on the second chick as I really want 'her' to be a pullet. What do you all think?

This particular hatche was supposed to give me a Bantam cockerel (I got 2 pullets) and a BCM cockerel ~which I got a few of. I did not expect to fall in love with these OEs…and now do NOT want to sell them, nor do I have the room for them. Boo.

 

[ronott1]

Bare with me here and the terrible photography. These chicks hatched September 15th, making them, oh about 8 weeks? I'm thinking that the chick at 1 o'clock is a cockerel as 'he' has the tell tail orange/brown coloring on the wing coverts. The chick at 8 o'clock, I think has more 'all over' orangey brown coloring coming in with the blue. I'm wondering if I'm just seeing what I would like to see on the second chick as I really want 'her' to be a pullet. What do you all think?

This particular hatche was supposed to give me a Bantam cockerel (I got 2 pullets) and a BCM cockerel ~which I got a few of. I did not expect to fall in love with these OEs…and now do NOT want to sell them, nor do I have the room for them. Boo.

The reddish coloring on the blue chick is a Rooster pattern for EEs.

Just something to watch--These are not EEs so the Red can come from another breed int the cross and not equal a boy.

Nice Flock!

 

[TammyTX]

Blarneyeggs - Thank you for sharing this photo! Several of your birds look like mine. I have a blue/red EE'r that is my favorite.




MaryHysong and Chicken Pickin - Thank you for your advice in helping me decide my best options to create a OE.

I think I'm going to put my Mixed roo in the hoop-coop with a couple BC's and EE's in the Spring, then I'll let the Marans roo and the full Welly roo cover the other EE'rs. By Spring my Black A's should be broody and ready to hatch some OE chickies! ....and by this time next year....OLIVE EGGS!!

....now what will I do with my little "surprise" Silver Hamburg roo....? Keep him FAR away!!

 

[Blarneyeggs]

Ron, Thanks for that tip. That was exactly what I was doing, using an EE rule to guess sex on my OEs, I figured that since they were both mixed breeds….. oh well.
TammyTX, sounds like you've got a pretty good plan, and looks like you've got a pretty cute EE.

I did get some better pics of the OE that I think/hope may be a pullet.








This is my current OE that gives me the pretty spotted eggs:

 

[TammyTX]

Gorg!! I love the muted colors! Beautiful.

 

[Mom of 6 chicks]

What a gorgeous rooster you have! In recent months, I acquired 6 chicks...was trying to find if there was a certain breed three of them were and discovered I might have some olive eggers in my clutch. Much to my frustration...I believe I may have more roos than hens, though. One of my 13 week olds is starting to show a bit of lemon splash around the saddle and neck region while another has iridescent blue/green feathers showing along the saddle and just began crowing this morning. The one with the lemon splash appears to be smaller in build with less red showing on the face than the one with iridescent blue/green feathers.

What I like about raising mixed-breed chicks is what they will look like as adults. Hopefully I'll get some olive eggs out of it.

 

[seventreesfarm]

I've been off this thread for a long time, and finally scanning through a million posts.
Has anyone figured out how to make self-replicating Olivers yet

I am starting profiles for my breeding stock using an app on my ipad that lets me put links, pics, text, etc together in a way that works better for me than excel. And I'm finally biting the bullet and culling anyone I wouldn't want for breeding. It's tough after keeping a mixed barnyard flock for so many years.

The hens out of my OE roo Sasquatch have been laying a while, and it is interesting to see what the different mixes produce. I sold him, and hope I won't regret it, since he seems to have had a good OE gene. He was kind of a jerk though.

Now I have one pen with a nice black AM roo, and one with a really awesome blue copper marans roo. Hen-wise I have black AMs, BCMs, sister Wellie/BCM crosses (both lay brown eggs, but one is as dark as the BCMs with Wellie speckles. They both have such cool colors & conformation that I'm breeding them to each roo to see what happens), sister OE/OE crosses (both blue like their mom, both lay nice olive eggs with brown speckles like their mom), one AM cross (not sure her parents but she looks like a black AM with frosting on her head feathers, she lays a pretty pale green egg), one AM cross that lays a glossy grey/khaki/olive egg, sister splashes OE/OE crosses (one with pea comb lays pale green/olive egg with tan speckles, one with straight comb lays boring tan egg).

So once I get my cabinet incubator done (bye bye fussy foam 'bator!) I will start hatching from these pens, then switch up any likely pairs and hatch another round.

I'll post a pic of my eggs when I get home from work tonight.
I also have a trio of young New Hampshires, but I won't suck them into my OE experiments

-Joanna

 

[Penny Hen]

I've been off this thread for a long time, and finally scanning through a million posts.
Has anyone figured out how to make self-replicating Olivers yet

I am starting profiles for my breeding stock using an app on my ipad that lets me put links, pics, text, etc together in a way that works better for me than excel. And I'm finally biting the bullet and culling anyone I wouldn't want for breeding. It's tough after keeping a mixed barnyard flock for so many years.

The hens out of my OE roo Sasquatch have been laying a while, and it is interesting to see what the different mixes produce. I sold him, and hope I won't regret it, since he seems to have had a good OE gene. He was kind of a jerk though.

Now I have one pen with a nice black AM roo, and one with a really awesome blue copper marans roo. Hen-wise I have black AMs, BCMs, sister Wellie/BCM crosses (both lay brown eggs, but one is as dark as the BCMs with Wellie speckles. They both have such cool colors & conformation that I'm breeding them to each roo to see what happens), sister OE/OE crosses (both blue like their mom, both lay nice olive eggs with brown speckles like their mom), one AM cross (not sure her parents but she looks like a black AM with frosting on her head feathers, she lays a pretty pale green egg), one AM cross that lays a glossy grey/khaki/olive egg, sister splashes OE/OE crosses (one with pea comb lays pale green/olive egg with tan speckles, one with straight comb lays boring tan egg).

So once I get my cabinet incubator done (bye bye fussy foam 'bator!) I will start hatching from these pens, then switch up any likely pairs and hatch another round.

I'll post a pic of my eggs when I get home from work tonight.
I also have a trio of young New Hampshires, but I won't suck them into my OE experiments

-Joanna

I am working on developing an Olive Egger that will have a distinctive color pattern much different than the handful that is well known. I have been playing with the Kippen Jungle calculator and have discovered that their are some striking patterns possible that almost no breed (in the U.S at least) breeds for. The Olive Eggers lay such a distinctive egg it only seems right that they develop their own look apart from the common patterns. My Olive Eggers are Marran/Am cross. The most common crosses after that seem to be Welsummer/Am and Pendenesca/Am.

Peacombs are linked to the blue gene and usually a single comb means you have "lost" the blue gene (i.e. when the DNA chain is "unzipped" to make the 2 ova or 2 sperm the half that you got didn't have the Blue gene). Think of it like a game of Red Rover. There were always those kids who it was so tough to break their hand grip on each other. This is the peacomb gen and the blue egg gene. So Peacombs are a must unless you really want to breed 1000 or more birds to establish it in a single comb version. Now personally for me I want to keep the beards and muffs so that would mean that all the roos must be fully bearded. If you had a fine clean faced hen who laid a deep colored egg and had good body form then by no means cull her but to keep the beards and muffs the roos will need to be full beards. Important too is (in my opinion of course) is the ability o forage and a general robustness of health. These they have naturally at the moment but if the gene pool is narrowed to establish a series of color patterns it could be lost if you are only thinking about breeding for the color.

These are some of the unusual patterns that could be bred for. I came up with these working from the phenotypes (outward appearance) of my chickens. Only breeding and hatching will confirm that I have all the genes guessed right because for instance there are 3 gene that can give the Lemon color and 2 melanizing genes that you only need one or the other get lacing. Also there are at least 4 ways to get black. So even with the calculator test breeding will be an important part of things.

 

[Manningjw]

Has anyone tried successive breeding to Red Star type hybrids that lay medium/dark brown eggs instead of doing a single generation to a chicken in the Maran family?

Seems like it should work, the first cross of a Mara and blue egg layer produces the olive egg - which I imagine is a bit lighter brown coating than the Red Star. Breeding this back and getting 50% blue genes mixed with even more medium/dark brown I imagine would produce an olive egg similar to that of a Maran/Ameraucana hybrid but with better egg production?

Anyway, I am essentially trying this out with the eggs in my incubator right now so hopefully in 4-5 months I can answer this question with the eggs produced!