The Olive-Egger thread!

[maryhysong]

Here are eggs from the speckled mom and olive daughter:


Here are some more of the olive eggs...I guess I prefer the greener eggs over the over the browner ones, maybe that is just a weird personal preference:

Those are some really beautiful eggs! I hatched some from my green egg EE girls and a BCM; three chicks, of course only 1 pullet. I have a couple of cull BCM girls in the layer house; culls because they are very small and have terrible type for a Marans. But one is laying a pretty dark egg. I might hatch some of them because I keep an EE roo in that pen.

 

[clucking cuties]

P.S. I had not thought about crossing back to an olive rooster, but when I hatch the olive eggs I should get some Olive roosters. I have a few roosters left from the original crosses that produced the olive egg layers, but I always feel that to use a rooster for breeding, I want to see the size and color I want in the egg he comes from, and then also see it in his daughters. My F2 generation will be this spring, that may well be my F3.

 

[clucking cuties]

Thanks guys. The speckled is nowhere as dark as some of the others, but I just love the speckled green eggs. The remind me of green pears. I don't post too often, but I promise to keep the olive eggers thread updated when I set my eggs this spring, to see what hatches, and this fall when I finally get to see what they will lay. Sometimes it is tough to make a selection, because some of my best dark eggs are smaller than I would like, so I need to cross with a rooster that seems to throw daughters who lay larger eggs.

LOL..

I promised my husband no more hatching....evil grin

 

[clucking cuties]

I would make that cross if she lays a nice dark egg and see what happens. Nothing to loose except the blood sweat and tears that go along with hatching and raising them.

But you never know, you could get great eggs, or they could end up as chicken soup or fried chicken. Many of my "experiments" have ended up as chicken soup and fried chicken.

I have learned that patience is a virtue, and never to count my chickens before they hatch or lay. Good luck to you!

 

[ChicwannaB]

Howdy Y'all,
I haven't been on site in a long while but I am a BYC member. I live in Michigan and would like to purchase some truly OLIVE egger fertile eggs by the end of the month to incubate with some blue eggs I'll be getting around then. Only have 7 egg capacity in my 2nd incubator.
Someone get with me, I'll send ya out a check asap so I can get some eggs. Thanks. really appreciate it.

 

[farmhand]

Here are eggs from the speckled mom and olive daughter:

Is Welsummer part of this cross? Very nice.

 

[clucking cuties]

Thanks!

The cross for the olive speckled was between a Black copper Marans hen and Blue Ameraucana rooster. I am not sure why the Marans hen had the speckles on a lighter background, maybe faulty inkjets, but I like it and her daughter apparently inherited it as a speckled light olive.

 

[buckabucka]

P.S.  I had not thought about crossing back to an olive rooster, but when I hatch the olive eggs I should get some Olive roosters.  I have a few roosters left from the original crosses that produced the olive egg layers, but I always feel that to use a rooster for breeding, I want to see the size and color I want in the egg he comes from, and then also see it in his daughters.  My F2 generation will be this spring, that may well be my F3.   

Your speckled egg is gorgeous!
It was not my original intention to keep an OE rooster here, but he hatched at just the right time. We had a nasty rooster we needed to get rid of, and the OE was our first chick to hatch under a broody. Sometimes I would like to replace him with a pure breed, but any new rooster would have to match this OEs easy-going personality.

 

[dfdesigns]

Nice roosters are always a bonus, aren't they?

That speckled OE egg is simply gorgeous.

 

[clucking cuties]

Thanks guys,

Any roosters that I hatch go into the stew pot if they are aggressive or not nice to the ladies once the get past their "idiot teenage male" phase. I have a few big older hens that I keep solely for the purpose of educating young roosters as to just who is the boss around the hen house. Good for you for getting rid of the nasty rooster.

I believe that personality is also genetic.