The Olive-Egger thread!

[onthespot]

The blue egg gene is associated on the chromosome close to the pea comb area, and according to genetics experts that have posted on BYC earlier, if a bird hatches out of a blue egg and has a pea comb, it is almost guaranteed to lay blue eggs. If it hatches out of a blue egg and has a single comb, it has approximately a 3% chance of having inherited the blue egg gene. With chances that slim, it is just much more cost effective to choose the pea combed offspring and concentrate on them for your breeding program. Right now I have a single combed cockerel that is barred and muffed, but straight combed. I am keeping him anyway just for putting bars and muffs on my two pea combed, clean faced pullets. I also plan to ccross him back on his mother to try for chicks with all of the traits I am breeding for. He has everything except the pea comb, so theoretically I should get fifty fifty peacombs on that cross, all barred and 75% with muffs. Time will tell. He is still peeping right now, so it will be a while before I get to test my theory. For right now I am crossing her on a blue cuckoo marans to hopefully get some barred, bearded, pea combed pullets.

 

[tfpets]

I have moved my EE girl into the Black Copper pen - she seems glad to see her friends again! Now I'll wait a few weeks and then see if her eggs are fertile, and we're in business!
Tina

 

[ninjapoodles]

I just hatched these two chicks from blue EE eggs, by a copper black Marans roo. The dark-colored chick has light shank feathering, and the chipmunky chick has a METALLIC copper stripe down the middle of her back!

 

[onthespot]

Wow! I'd like to see that copper stripe. I know you can't make a camera see some reflected light the way we do... but I sure would like to have seen it in person.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
You can just see it in profile if you look at that top picture (look on top of her head and along the top of her back). I'll take her outside in the sunlight tomorrow, and see if I can't get a true shot of it. It's unreal--it looks like a shiny new penny! Isn't that cool?

Also, have you ever seen a spotted face? I have a leopard chick!

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

Ninja Poodles is the chick in the second pic out of a barred parent? The reason I ask is because it has the white spot. They are so adorable and round!

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
Nope--that's what the copper black Marans look like as chicks, too. If not for a lot of reddish fuzz all throughout, this chick could pass for a purebred CB Marans chick.

 

[speckledhen]

My BR over Ameraucana cross lays what I'd call olive green eggs. See pictures of Panda and her half sister, Victoria Elizabeth here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1613002#p1613002

 

[Ellie]

Here are the eggs that Victoria Elizabeth lays. These were her first two, I believe.

Here they are with a brown egg for comparison.

 

[speckledhen]

Hers are even darker than Panda's, Ellie!