The Olive-Egger thread!

[ochochicas]

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

Does the chicken have a pea comb? We can assume that if he has a pea comb he will carry one blue egg gene and one dark brown gene from the Marans. If you were to cross him with an EE that lays blue eggs, half of the offspring pullets would lay olive eggs and the other half should lay blue eggs. If you cross him with a green egg layer, you would probably get half olive and also some that lay brown eggs. Depends on the exact genetics of the hens.

 

[Manningjw]

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

Brown egg laying genetics aren't fully understood, but there are many genes involved that contribute to the brown egg color.

As has been stated before if your 'pullet' has a pea comb he most likely will have the blue egg laying gene. If you cross back to an EE that lays a green egg, you will probably get a slightly more green shade of egg. Crossing back to an EE will likely give you near 100% chance of having a green egg layer in the next generation - this depends on whether your EE has 2 genes or only 1. If you cross back to another brown egg layer on the other hand you *should* get 50% of the off spring carrying blue egg trait and slightly darker eggs. This all depends on how well the blue shell gene was selected for in the parent stock of the EE your roo came from.

 

[4Hgirl]

Do I understand this right-an ameuracana that ends up with green legs is actually an Easter Egger? So my green legged rooster is heterozygous for the blue egg gene? He hatched with others (which i believe to be pullets) who have slate colored legs. I also have one black marans pullet. If I breed this roo with green legs he may or may not pass on the blue egg gene right? I was hoping to get an olive egger out of him and the marans pullet.

 

[ronott1]

Do I understand this right-an ameuracana that ends up with green legs is actually an Easter Egger? So my green legged rooster is heterozygous for the blue egg gene? He hatched with others (which i believe to be pullets) who have slate colored legs. I also have one black marans pullet. If I breed this roo with green legs he may or may not pass on the blue egg gene right? I was hoping to get an olive egger out of him and the marans pullet.

It is the pea or straight comb that is linked with the blue egg shell genes with Araucana based blue egg layers. Ameraucanas used the Araucana as one of the breeding parents.

Green is a blue egg with the brown egg shell coating. The darker the brown, the closer to Olive the egg will be in color.

 

[hotlipshens]

Ameraucanas by definition never have green legs. Easter eggers or americanas which are mixed breeds often do though.

 

[ochochicas]

Now you can also get an olive egger or EE from a cream legbar crossed with a brown egg layer. They chicks won't have a pea comb.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Green is a blue egg with the brown egg shell coating. The darker the brown, the closer to Olive the egg will be in color.

Not sure this is true with Isbar who lay green eggs. The inside of the shell is green, not blue. Insights?

 

[bamadude]

Anybody have pics of eggs from isbar x Marans (or other dark layer)?

 

[MarshallPrime]

So here is the Olive Egger in question (in back). Nice looking bird really. Really there is no question. DEFINITELY a cockerel. So from what I am reading, if he mates with an EE then their offspring will be 50% olive and 50 brown. HMMMMMMMM, so i have to decide if it is worth keeping him around all winter to get him to mate with my EE in the spring then wait till Oct to get to see if their babies, IF they have pullets, will lay olive or not. Maybe im better off just getting an olive egger or two somewhere else. I have not seen any on craigslist but I can try the indiana message board and see if anyone there has some. I really want to cross some olive eggers with my BC Maran roo for dark green eggs.

On a side note, any ideas about the bird in front? Roo or Pullet? The lady said pullet but im not thinking so. Supposed to be a blue copper maran but not sure. seems like something else might be going on there.
thanks for the input.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

Anybody have pics of eggs from isbar x Marans (or other dark layer)?

Just hatching out our test batches of the F1 on this cross. We'll have to wait for them to grow up first.