The Olive-Egger thread!

[Corkypx3]

Thanks Peep_Show, probably not but I wanted a second opinion I've only hatched once before and that was just before this one and then there were 4/5 males so I've not got much pullet experience! Male 1 had a large red comb almost from day 1, I think when these have gone more may suddenly develop but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for at least a couple of ladies

 

[ronott1]

Thanks Peep_Show, probably not but I wanted a second opinion I've only hatched once before and that was just before this one and then there were 4/5 males so I've not got much pullet experience! Male 1 had a large red comb almost from day 1, I think when these have gone more may suddenly develop but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for at least a couple of ladies

Both Marans and CCLs have big straight combs that develop early.

It is rare for one to suddenly show itself to be a Cockerel.

I really like your little pullet! I bet you will have very nice OE eggs.

 

[Corkypx3]

Both Marans and CCLs have big straight combs that develop early.

It is rare for one to suddenly show itself to be a Cockerel.

I really like your little pullet! I bet you will have very nice OE eggs.

That's great, thanks. There is another similar one which looks like a pullet too and at hatch it looked like a bluish extended black copper black chick but it had dodgy legs and I nearly culled it but kept strapping them and now its fine I'm so glad i persevered!

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Two of my EE's started laying at 24 weeks...same as my White Leghorn & Red Sex-Link.

I've found it's really all over the map. The first BCM I purchased from a breeder didn't start to lay until about 8 months, but I got them in October ~ 5-6 months old. Some Marans pullets that were hatched from my eggs started laying at 16 weeks! The golden buff sexlinks I got for the layer flock started right at 16 weeks and have been cranking out nearly an egg a day ever since. My Isbar pullets started laying at 16-17 weeks. I think it depends on when they were hatched, what time of year they reach maturity, feed programs, weather, geographic location, etc. We all need something else to make us crazy with these birds, right?

 

[Hangtown Farms]

I got my first egg from my first gen. crele olive eggers

 

[KendyF]

I got my first egg from my first gen. crele olive eggers
Awesome!!!!

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Love this chart! I have been trying to figure something out, maybe you can help. I keep reading that hybrids don't "breed true" so when you want to produce the hybrid offspring again, you cannot just cross the hybrids with other hybrids, you have to go back to crossing the purebreds again. Is this true for OE's? If I cross an OE to an OE, will the chicks produced be OE's? Say I cross 2, 2nd gen OE's, will all chicks be OE? Thanks for looking!

I've been away from the list for a few days so forgive me if I'm replying to something that's already been answered. 5+ pages of posts!

Any basic genetics discussion will help you understand how this works, whether it's about Mendel's peas or egg colors. Of course, there are several as yet not understood variables to things like very dark brown eggs that will cause some inconsistencies, but in general the answer to your questions are yes to the first and no to the second (if the question is "will 100% of the chicks produced be OEs?") In my opinion the only way to be sure you are going to get olive eggs is using a homozygous blue egg carrier (two copies of the blue egg gene) crossed with a dark brown egg laying breed (doesn't matter what sex the blue or dark brown egg parent is). As others have said, breeding the resulting OE to the brown egger again will darken the shade of olive and breeding OE back to the homozygous blue carrier will lighten the shade of olive. In General.

Because the F1 OE only carries one gene for blue eggs, if you cross that with another F1 OE statistically you have a lesser chance of OE. Breeding two F2 generation birds yields an even lower chance of OE as you have to match up the blue egg gene with the dark brown in a percentage that will give you the olive shade. I don't believe Olive Egger will ever be a "breed" because of this. Most people just want the pretty eggs for color diversity in their basket, and that's really easy to do with a simple hybrid F1 cross. I don't understand why someone would spend years working on trying to get OE to breed true when the science of genetics says the chances are so slim, but it's interesting nonetheless.

We have Marans so that is what I am using. I get so frustrated with the Ameraucanas and sexing, so I am going with single comb OE and some of them (maybe all of them in the future) as sexlinked chicks. Black copper Marans over crested cream legbar and Isbar over cuckoo Marans for example...right now we have a splash Isbar cockerel in with BCM, splash copper, and blue copper Marans pullets. I love the blue color birds so that's why that choice. There is a single CCL pullet at POL in with the BCM cock and there's a young cuckoo Marans (hoping pullet) in with the brooder chicks.

 

[Olive Oil]

I've been away from the list for a few days so forgive me if I'm replying to something that's already been answered. 5+ pages of posts!

Any basic genetics discussion will help you understand how this works, whether it's about Mendel's peas or egg colors. Of course, there are several as yet not understood variables to things like very dark brown eggs that will cause some inconsistencies, but in general the answer to your questions are yes to the first and no to the second (if the question is "will 100% of the chicks produced be OEs?") In my opinion the only way to be sure you are going to get olive eggs is using a homozygous blue egg carrier (two copies of the blue egg gene) crossed with a dark brown egg laying breed (doesn't matter what sex the blue or dark brown egg parent is). As others have said, breeding the resulting OE to the brown egger again will darken the shade of olive and breeding OE back to the homozygous blue carrier will lighten the shade of olive. In General.

Because the F1 OE only carries one gene for blue eggs, if you cross that with another F1 OE statistically you have a lesser chance of OE. Breeding two F2 generation birds yields an even lower chance of OE as you have to match up the blue egg gene with the dark brown in a percentage that will give you the olive shade. I don't believe Olive Egger will ever be a "breed" because of this. Most people just want the pretty eggs for color diversity in their basket, and that's really easy to do with a simple hybrid F1 cross. I don't understand why someone would spend years working on trying to get OE to breed true when the science of genetics says the chances are so slim, but it's interesting nonetheless.

We have Marans so that is what I am using. I get so frustrated with the Ameraucanas and sexing, so I am going with single comb OE and some of them (maybe all of them in the future) as sexlinked chicks. Black copper Marans over crested cream legbar and Isbar over cuckoo Marans for example...right now we have a splash Isbar cockerel in with BCM, splash copper, and blue copper Marans pullets. I love the blue color birds so that's why that choice. There is a single CCL pullet at POL in with the BCM cock and there's a young cuckoo Marans (hoping pullet) in with the brooder chicks.

It's all up to you. Each direction you go gives you different results, but here's a little diagram that may help -





Basically it is saying that if you take the first gen Olive Egger and breed it to a dark layer (Marans) again, you'll get much darker eggs but they'll be more on the brown side. Do it again and you're eventually going to get back to the dark reddish browns. In between and like seen in those collection photos, you may get some neat true chocolate colors too instead of red shades.

Cross the F1 back to a blue layer and you're headed back to a green shade of egg, do it again and you're back to blues.

Cross the F1 to another F1 and you're going to get anything and everything from normal olive green to normal dark reddish brown to anything else, including blue, mint green, green/brown speckled, avacado skin green, emu egg turquoise, etc. But you need to hatch out a lot of girls because the chances for some of those color options are slim, so it takes patience and mass batches to wait til laying age. The chart there shows if you went the most GREEN route possible, breeding for a bird carrying homozygous, pure blue as well as homozygous, pure dark reddish brown.

Love this chart! I have been trying to figure something out, maybe you can help. I keep reading that hybrids don't "breed true" so when you want to produce the hybrid offspring again, you cannot just cross the hybrids with other hybrids, you have to go back to crossing the purebreds again. Is this true for OE's? If I cross an OE to an OE, will the chicks produced be OE's? Say I cross 2, 2nd gen OE's, will all chicks be OE? Thanks for looking!

Still figuring out the "quote" and "multi" buttons! Think this is backwards, sorry. But thanks Ihilani for the breakdown. It makes a lot more sense now why 2nd and 3rd gens may not produce OE's. Bummer.

 

[aart]

Still figuring out the "quote" and "multi" buttons! Think this is backwards, sorry. But thanks Ihilani for the breakdown. It makes a lot more sense now why 2nd and 3rd gens may not produce OE's. Bummer.

You can cut and paste the quotes within your reply to put them in the order you want....also in preferences you can uncheck the 'remove nested quotes', that can help stack up quotes in a 'discussion' going on in a long thread like this.

 

[MarshallPrime]

Hello, so looking for a little help here.

I bought a pullet that was SUPPOSED to be a olive egger, father was blue copper maran and mother some sort of EE. Well, of course, like 75% of chickens I buy young, she looks like a He. I am sure of it. I will post pictures tomorrow night. Anyway, Im trying to decide what to do with him.

What will he bring to the table if I cross him with some EE? I have 3, all of which stopped laying about a month ago with no reason why. Anyway, Two of them lay a nice blue egg and the other is a VERY light green. More green than blue but not much but clearly more green that the other two.

So will this work? Will he bring enough darkness to the table to turn their babies eggs olive?

I dont know exactly how the genetics works but IF I decide to sell him, I want to know if I can advertise him as "if you cross him with your EE then the babies will be olive eggers." I dont want to mislead people.

hope u can follow this, thanks