The Olive-Egger thread!

[gimmie birdies]

my hen may go travel for love...

 

[fishmanwill]

Good evening.

We have gotten started with olive eggers and can't wait to get our first olive eggs! It will be a while though. I have a question on breeding olive eggers. Can you breed an olive egger to an olive egger and get more olive eggers? They are black copper marans x amerucuanas. I would like to breed more olive eggers. My mom has some olive eggers with the same cross I believe from a different breeder. Can I get a rooster from her and breed our hens later and still get olive eggers? If not what should I breed them to to keep the olive egger going? Thank you for the help, I do not understand the crosses and breeding very well yet, but hope to learn. Thanks.

 

[ronott1]

Good evening.

We have gotten started with olive eggers and can't wait to get our first olive eggs! It will be a while though. I have a question on breeding olive eggers. Can you breed an olive egger to an olive egger and get more olive eggers? They are black copper marans x amerucuanas. I would like to breed more olive eggers. My mom has some olive eggers with the same cross I believe from a different breeder. Can I get a rooster from her and breed our hens later and still get olive eggers? If not what should I breed them to to keep the olive egger going? Thank you for the help, I do not understand the crosses and breeding very well yet, but hope to learn. Thanks.

Green is a brown layer over a blue egg shell. Egg shells can be white or blue and blue is dominant so it only takes one from a parent to make the shell blue. The first cross will give you a blue egg shell from the blue parent and a white shell gene from the brown egg laying parent. The offspring from the OE mating will have some with two white egg shell genes so those eggs will be brown.

 

[Junibutt]

Green is a brown layer over a blue egg shell. Egg shells can be white or blue and blue is dominant so it only takes one from a parent to make the shell blue. The first cross will give you a blue egg shell from the blue parent and a white shell gene from the brown egg laying parent. The offspring from the OE mating will have some with two white egg shell genes so those eggs will be brown.

I always have to give a disclaimer first. "I am not a genetics expert and have not done any research on the issue before asking this question, so please excuse me"

I also have an F1 Olive egger and am working on producing Olive Eggers that breed true for olive eggs plus lay upwards for 300 eggs a year. Does someone have a flow-chart for that? This is what I have done so far because I knew that F2 would produce some brown eggs as well.
My F1 came from CCL roo x Red Star (ISA Brown) and lays a beautiful light olive egg.
I have backcrossed it to the CCL roo to transfer at least 1 blue gene again and thinking that the strength of brown color will hopefully not be too diluted in the offspring. So my back-cross should theoretically produce all Olive eggers again.
Secondly that would also produce half the offspring with 2 blue genes and theoretically a brown coating.

(Please note that I did not have a choice either because the original Red Star hen has stopped laying fertile eggs and I wanted to pass on her 361 egg laying capabilities to my Olive Eggers)

So now I have several chicks that will have the following chances:

50% with two blue genes (plus brown) and 50% with 1 blue and 1 white gene.

What would be the best course of action from here to eliminate the white genes from future generations. Obviously 1 blue versus 2 blue genes do not make a difference in egg color or it would be easy. Is egg color the best criteria for selection of the hen? What about the rooster. I wish there was a marker that would indicate what egg color genes the rooster has!

I am clueless at this point. Should have done my homework!

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

my other olive egger in the left corner(3) just started to lay this green egg. She is half BCM and half Isbar.
1. is Isbar egg. 2. is lavender orpington 4. is Blue andelusian, 5. is White maran 6. is EE

Very nice color for F1 eggs. We love our single comb OE (BCM X Isbar and Isbar X CCL)! These are some F1s from our BCM X CCL:

 

[Cynthia12]

Man, wondering if these OE's take a while to start like most EE's. I have an OE that is point of lay..at least I thought she was. She sure looks like a hen. Hatched her during the New Yr. Day hatch a long. I've seen her in the nest box a few times, but nothing. Come on already, can't wait to see that egg color.
Wondering, will the egg be darker than what she came from. She came from one of the most pretty olive colors..think green olive, not army green, not a brown green, no speckles..just a plain pretty olive color, and very smooth. I hope it isn't much darker.

 

[Ihilani Coffee]

I always have to give a disclaimer first. "I am not a genetics expert and have not done any research on the issue before asking this question, so please excuse me"

I also have an F1 Olive egger and am working on producing Olive Eggers that breed true for olive eggs plus lay upwards for 300 eggs a year. Does someone have a flow-chart for that? This is what I have done so far because I knew that F2 would produce some brown eggs as well.
My F1 came from CCL roo x Red Star (ISA Brown) and lays a beautiful light olive egg.
I have backcrossed it to the CCL roo to transfer at least 1 blue gene again and thinking that the strength of brown color will hopefully not be too diluted in the offspring. So my back-cross should theoretically produce all Olive eggers again.
Secondly that would also produce half the offspring with 2 blue genes and theoretically a brown coating.

(Please note that I did not have a choice either because the original Red Star hen has stopped laying fertile eggs and I wanted to pass on her 361 egg laying capabilities to my Olive Eggers)

So now I have several chicks that will have the following chances:

50% with two blue genes (plus brown) and 50% with 1 blue and 1 white gene.

What would be the best course of action from here to eliminate the white genes from future generations. Obviously 1 blue versus 2 blue genes do not make a difference in egg color or it would be easy. Is egg color the best criteria for selection of the hen? What about the rooster. I wish there was a marker that would indicate what egg color genes the rooster has!

I am clueless at this point. Should have done my homework!

Here is THE BEST OE egg color breeding chart. All others are definitely oversimplified and erroneous, leading a lot of people "down the garden path" as they say. Steve Neumann put a lot of thought and work into this. I just keep posting the link so people can learn if they wish to study it at length. Feel free to join the facebook group Olive Eggers also.

https://drive.google.com/a/flex.com/file/d/0B2tKFvBKXZesVDZxaUYteElKTE0/view

 

[ronott1]

Man, wondering if these OE's take a while to start like most EE's. I have an OE that is point of lay..at least I thought she was. She sure looks like a hen. Hatched her during the New Yr. Day hatch a long. I've seen her in the nest box a few times, but nothing. Come on already, can't wait to see that egg color.
Wondering, will the egg be darker than what she came from. She came from one of the most pretty olive colors..think green olive, not army green, not a brown green, no speckles..just a plain pretty olive color, and very smooth. I hope it isn't much darker.

It depends on the cross to make them. CL x penedesenca pullets start at an average time--20 to 25 weeks old.

My NYD TJ's chicks have been laying for about 4 weeks now. The Blue black splash australorps have not started yet but should start in the next 2 weeks or so.

 

[Cynthia12]

Ok..I will give her another two weeks before I start giving her a good talking to. Well, I've sort of started that already. She comes around begging, and I say, you need to go lay an egg! Go.

Thanks ron..will be fun to see the color for sure. She's a pretty girl. Marans mixed with something. ?? Friend gave me eggs for the hatch a long.

 

[Junibutt]

Here is THE BEST OE egg color breeding chart. All others are definitely oversimplified and erroneous, leading a lot of people "down the garden path" as they say. Steve Neumann put a lot of thought and work into this. I just keep posting the link so people can learn if they wish to study it at length. Feel free to join the facebook group Olive Eggers also.

https://drive.google.com/a/flex.com/file/d/0B2tKFvBKXZesVDZxaUYteElKTE0/view

Thanks so much!