The Olive-Egger thread!

[bantambury]

Okay, so this week my Olive Egger has started laying her eggs. Very consistent, only missed one day out of the entire week. But, the problem is.... they are not so Olive. I had looked at pictures online and was expecting this:


but instead I am getting something like this: (The brownish ones in the picture)


I have been calling them olive so far, since it is my favorite color, but really, it isn't all too Olive. She was an Ameraucana Hen and ?BCM? or some other Marans cross. She has the pea comb so there was supposed to be a 97% chance of the olive egg. Her sister/brother had the straight comb, and had a 97% chance of laying brown. However, he/she died so I will never know, but it was definately a rooster anyways....

But my question- is it safe to call those eggs in the second picture, the brownish ones, olive, or did my OE turn out to be an 'Brown Egger'?

these eggs may just have a more distinctive chocolate gene making the eggs rather brown. my OE lays very light green eggs, and 7 of them im hatching for NYD......my roos are a jap bantam and a silkie!!! hahahaha

here is the olive egger egg color chart...








here are my olive egger eggs: ( the green ones in the brooder)
(on right side)
(far left)


as you see, my egger's eggs are not that olivy either....as long as they are not americuana green, and follow one color in the three charts I gave, she is an OE.


my OE is a mix...very different....no idea what she could be a mix of though! she is bantam sized, but lays standard sized eggs!!!! hahahahhaha




hope this helps!
~bantambury

 

[chicken pickin]

Okay, so this week my Olive Egger has started laying her eggs. Very consistent, only missed one day out of the entire week. But, the problem is.... they are not so Olive. I had looked at pictures online and was expecting this:


but instead I am getting something like this: (The brownish ones in the picture)


I have been calling them olive so far, since it is my favorite color, but really, it isn't all too Olive. She was an Ameraucana Hen and ?BCM? or some other Marans cross. She has the pea comb so there was supposed to be a 97% chance of the olive egg. Her sister/brother had the straight comb, and had a 97% chance of laying brown. However, he/she died so I will never know, but it was definately a rooster anyways....

But my question- is it safe to call those eggs in the second picture, the brownish ones, olive, or did my OE turn out to be an 'Brown Egger'?

Im not sure if I would call her and Olive Egger. I might be more inclined to call her an Easter Egger since they lay any color egg. Olive Eggers are supposed to lay shaded of olive green. That's just my opinion though.

 

[RockerHen]

Got my first olive egg from my F1 olive egger yesterday (Cuckoo Marans father, EE mother). It's a little on the small size, and a bit pointy, but overall not too bad for a first egg

She's a good sized pullet, her father is a very large bird, so I'm expecting her egg to increase in size. She's extremely skittish, and prefers to either keep to herself or hang out with the turkeys. At the moment I'm raising up two more EEs (one blue, one gold with black head/chest lacing) to cross to the Marans to hopefully make more OEs.

 

[bantambury]

Got my first olive egg from my F1 olive egger yesterday (Cuckoo Marans father, EE mother). It's a little on the small size, and a bit pointy, but overall not too bad for a first egg

She's a good sized pullet, her father is a very large bird, so I'm expecting her egg to increase in size. She's extremely skittish, and prefers to either keep to herself or hang out with the turkeys. At the moment I'm raising up two more EEs (one blue, one gold with black head/chest lacing) to cross to the Marans to hopefully make more OEs.

gorgeous OE! im guessing a rock mix?

 

[Manningjw]

Okay, so this week my Olive Egger has started laying her eggs. Very consistent, only missed one day out of the entire week. But, the problem is.... they are not so Olive. I had looked at pictures online and was expecting this:


but instead I am getting something like this: (The brownish ones in the picture)


I have been calling them olive so far, since it is my favorite color, but really, it isn't all too Olive. She was an Ameraucana Hen and ?BCM? or some other Marans cross. She has the pea comb so there was supposed to be a 97% chance of the olive egg. Her sister/brother had the straight comb, and had a 97% chance of laying brown. However, he/she died so I will never know, but it was definately a rooster anyways....

But my question- is it safe to call those eggs in the second picture, the brownish ones, olive, or did my OE turn out to be an 'Brown Egger'?

Just to be clear, they are the brown not the green/olive eggs? It seems that that your hen did not get the blue egg gene from the Ameraucana side. Ameraucanas should carry 2 blue egg genes would would guarantee the F1 cross to have it.

I don't see any hint of blue in those brown eggs but just to be 100% sure she doesn't have the blue egg gene, crack one open and see if the inside is white as I suspect it is.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

here is the olive egger egg color chart...

Some clarification on this, please? This chart is for an EE that only carries one blue egg gene, correct? My understanding is crossing a dark brown egg breed (Marans) with a blue egg layer (Ameraucana) will give almost 100% OE. Am I mistaken? Just trying to learn...

 

[Manningjw]

Some clarification on this, please? This chart is for an EE that only carries one blue egg gene, correct? My understanding is crossing a dark brown egg breed (Marans) with a blue egg layer (Ameraucana) will give almost 100% OE. Am I mistaken? Just trying to learn...

You are correct in that they "Should" have olive colored eggs. Unfortunately some breeders and hatcheries do not select their breeding stock well IE: some Marans that lay a medium to dark egg instead of a very dark chocolate egg. Similarly some Ameraucana breeders may not have all their stock homozygous for the blue egg allele.

 

[44Wolves]

Okay, if this helps, I pulled this from a conversation on here between me and the seller of the OE. "The mother is black copper marans x EE and she was bred to a wheaten marans. She lays a mossy green egg. So those 2 chicks are 3/4 marans and 1/4 EE." Not sure if that changes anything. I will be cracking open an egg in a bit to see the inside. If the inside in blueish, that means it is olive, but if it's white, it is brown?

 

[chicken pickin]

Okay, if this helps, I pulled this from a conversation on here between me and the seller of the OE. "The mother is black copper marans x EE and she was bred to a wheaten marans. She lays a mossy green egg. So those 2 chicks are 3/4 marans and 1/4 EE." Not sure if that changes anything. I will be cracking open an egg in a bit to see the inside. If the inside in blueish, that means it is olive, but if it's white, it is brown?

Hmmm... I wouldn't expect the inside to be blue(but I suppose it could). And I would think if the chicks you got were 3/4Marans and 1/4EE they would likely lay a darker egg than what yours are laying.

Im looking forward to seeing your egg inside and out. Also do you have pics of what color egg the chicks hatched from and/or their parents? From what they are saying the background is the mother hen was F1 OE and your chick F2. Looks like it lost the Blue/green along the way. The seller may want to concider raising a few of their F2 to laying age and see what the offspring is throwing. Just a thought.

Do you have pics of your chickens as chicks and pullets?

Sorry for all the questions Im just curious now.

 

[44Wolves]

I have pleeeeeeenty pictures of her.
Sage a few weeks ago:

Sage when she finally became fully feathered -mostly-

Sage as a chick, a few weeks old.

Sage at just a few days old


Okay. So I cracked open the egg. First, let me show you the egg I cracked open, the next photo had flash on:

This one makes it look very green, it was in direct white light.

The carton of blue eggs from EE's and the "olive eggs" from my OE, the one I cracked is the speckled one:

Another one of her eggs, not one I cracked open, just for reference to an egg without the brown speckles on it:

So now, I cracked it. This one is a white egg, a blue egg, the top exterior half of the olive egg, and the bottom interior of the egg side by side:

The one next to the white egg as slightly wet, I had washed the egg I cracked and did not dry that one very well:


Close up next to the blue egg:


Close up next to the white egg:



Of course, the pictures are lying-- I did not use flash on the cracked eggs pics, and the lighting was somewhat poor. However, in real life, it did look somewhat like the blue egg, the interior of the olive egg, just a bit diluted.

I think I got me an Olive Egger Hopefully her color gets better over time. Her first egg (the one all the way on left in the egg carton picture) was her first egg, and the speckled egg, the one I cracked, seems much more vivid and green.
So, yeah, I think I got me an OE. LEt me know what you guys think!