The Olive-Egger thread!

[LisaLouHoo]

@Brittany0309

IMO with the girls you already have, you should look for a purebred AmERaucana rooster. Aracaunas are a rumpless chicken and you would know one when you saw it...no butt. Also if it is advertised as an AmerIcana, then it is not pure. First generation may lay a colored egg, but next only has a 50/50 chance...and I swear it doesn't work. I tried twice, lol. So with a true blue egg rooster and your selection of hens, especially the marans, you may be able to hatch out some OE. Your red hens lay a darker egg, but not like the preferred dark marans eggs, but may give you a darker green egg. And then you can get MORE marans pullets for your Ameraucana roo....that's chicken math for you, lol.

 

[ronott1]

alrighty, folks. I'm new to the whole breeding game. Completely. I have an Easter Egger hen who is laying a lighter blue, an Americauna pullet who is 11 weeks, a black maran pullet who is 10 weeks, a golden laced cochin who is 10 weeks, a rhode island red hen and a new hampshire red hen. I want to breed for olive eggs (or anything neat for that matter) and have been trying to wade through this all. I have the opportunity to take in a 10 week old Splash maran roo, an Aracauna roo, a french black copper maran roo or a blue copper Marans roo (You'd have to tell me the last two would make an awesome breed to get me to do the 4.5 hour round trip drive to get one ). Which do I go for? What will resulting chicks lay? And then do I cross back again to get a darker egg? From what I have read, it looks like I need the Maran roo to mate with the Americauna and easter egger to get an olive egg, but then cross that chick back to the roo to get a dark olive egg. Is this correct? And if I got the Aracauna roo instead, would I still get olive eggs from my one maran mating with him? I hope this all makes sense Someone make me a darn chart of what I'll get with each of my hens roo options!!! lol I posted pictures of my rooster options
Thanks, all!!

Splash Maran Roo up front


Aracauna roo 1


Pick of the litter from these Aracauna

Back somewhere in this thread are posts with breeding charts. Your combinations are classic so a classic chart will work.



And

 

[ochochicas]

I agree that the Araucanas in the pics are probably not pure by any means. In the U.S. Araucanas should be rumpless and most breeding stock has tufts (not sure where you are). They still may be homozygous for blue egg genes,but you won't know until you breed them.

Brown egg genes are NOT recessive. If a hen has brown egg genes she will lay brown or green eggs. There is no way a hen can inherit "recessive brown" genes from an Easter Egger since this phenomenon does not exist.

Given your options, I would take the Splash marans as long as you know he's pure. The Araucana also seems like you'd be able to breed him for olive eggers, but based on his type you don't know if he has 2 blue egg genes or not. You could just do it and experiment with egg color. You might end up with something really exciting.

 

[gapey]

My Isbar x Black Copper Marans chicks are only 16 days old and one of them is already showing signs of wattles. I knew boys got wattles earlier than girls but at 16 days? I had no idea they'd start showing that early. So far only one of the five is showing wattles. It's a bummer because it was my favorite of the 5 chicks. It was the only one that was all grey/blue and no brown/copper. I have one that is all black with no brown/copper and thought that one was going to be the boy based on my first try at wing sexing. The other 3 all have brown/copper in wings and face.

 

[ochochicas]

My Isbar x Black Copper Marans chicks are only 16 days old and one of them is already showing signs of wattles. I knew boys got wattles earlier than girls but at 16 days? I had no idea they'd start showing that early. So far only one of the five is showing wattles. It's a bummer because it was my favorite of the 5 chicks. It was the only one that was all grey/blue and no brown/copper. I have one that is all black with no brown/copper and thought that one was going to be the boy based on my first try at wing sexing. The other 3 all have brown/copper in wings and face.

The prettiest/friendliest ones are always cockerels! LOL I had one that started to get a red comb at 10 days and he was crowing at 4 weeks. Talk about hormone imbalance! At 2 months he was mounting the older pullets. We still have him, but we'll be culling when he's a bit bigger. I don't want to take the chance of passing his early development genetics onto any more chicks.

 

[gapey]

The prettiest/friendliest ones are always cockerels! LOL I had one that started to get a red comb at 10 days and he was crowing at 4 weeks. Talk about hormone imbalance! At 2 months he was mounting the older pullets. We still have him, but we'll be culling when he's a bit bigger. I don't want to take the chance of passing his early development genetics onto any more chicks.

Wow that is crazy early!

 

[gimmie birdies]

mine just started to crow. and breed.

 

[StarMeKritten]

The prettiest/friendliest ones are always cockerels!  LOL  I had one that started to get a red comb at 10 days and he was crowing at 4 weeks.  Talk about hormone imbalance!  At 2 months he was mounting the older pullets.  We still have him, but we'll be culling when he's a bit bigger.  I don't want to take the chance of passing his early development genetics onto any more chicks.  

I had a welsummer/ EE mix that started crowing at 3-4 weeks. He had a full set of saddle feathers by the time he was 2 months old. It was absolutely crazy.

 

[gimmie birdies]

Today's hatch, not an OE, but a BO, still cute.

 

[trailrider330]

Perhaps this question has already been answered on this thread, but as I did not go back and read all (almost) 9,000 posts, I hope you forgive me if I ask it again.

Has anyone on this thread crossed barnevelders and ameraucanas? If so, would you be willing to post pics of the resulting birds and your F1 and/or F2 eggs? Thanks!