The Olive-Egger thread!

[Happy Chooks]

msgenie....... she's beautiful!

Ahappychick.....Someone's going to get a heck of a deal with that guy. He is gorgeous.

 

[protodon]

Could someone explain how 2nd generation Oliver Eggers genetics would work?

From my understanding. To get an olive egger you need one blue gene and one brown gene. The darker the brown the darker the olive.

So by crossing olive eggers to each other, one could expect 25% blue egg layers, 50% olive eggers, and 25% dark brown egg layers.

Or does the olive egg mechanism magically become one gene?

 

[Goose and Fig]

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Oh geez! I never thought that far ahead I guess. I thought you'd just get more olive eggers. I was going to cross mine to Welsummers one year, and then Ameracauna the next, so if I have all 3 generations laying I'd have lots of different shades of olive.

Hope someone can answer this!

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

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It's important to remember that olive eggs are blue eggs and are also dark brown eggs. One doesn't effect the other genetically, but together they become olive.

An f1 Olive Egger would be heterozygous for the blue egg gene (assuming a pure Ameraucana was crossed with a Marans or Welsummer)
In terms of crossing Olive Egger to Olive Egger, the f2 generation would give you 25% homozygous for the blue egg gene (2 copies), 50% heterozygous (1 copy), and 25% with no blue egg genes.

Thus 75% of the f2 generation would have at least 1 copy of the blue egg gene, and would lay a green egg of some sort. The remaining 25% would lay some sort of medium to darkish brown egg.

The brown egg genes are more complicated, from what I gather. There are dozens of genes contributing to brown shell as well as the brown shellack that makes them "dark."

I would expect that the f2 generation would lay some olive eggs, but many would be lighter, and tend towards green. It's is possible that some would be darker, but it seems those dark coating genes are quite recessive, and are easy to "lose." Even in pure Marans flocks based on very dark eggs, light eggs show up with regularity.

The one thing you can almost be certain of is a whole range of different shades of egg color, since the genes really get mixed up in the f2 generation.

We'll need pictures of course!

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

I should add that until and unless both parents have been proven to be homozygous for the blue egg gene (as they are in pure Ameraucanas), they will never "breed true."

This can only be determined by test crosses, which can be time consuming and result in lots of extra chicks. Not that we mind extra chicks....

 

[AHappychick]

is anyone on the f2 generation or f3 yet? i would love to see pics

 

[AHappychick]

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Thanks you know I hope so, this is the second time he has been on eggbid. I would like to keep him but I just can not have another flock, I am keeping 2 pullets to see what the egg color will be and they will be part of my edible eggs that I collect.

The hen completly stopped laying to so I only have 3 of them so far but I am hoping she will start back up again soon.

 

[onthespot]

Here are my pick flock from the F2's on my barred olive egger project. I am working toward homozygous for barring, beards, pea combs and olive egg producition, plus size, "poofiness", good feet, clean shanks, deep orange eyes, good combs and easy going temperament. I'm not there yet, LOL.

Each one of these has a fifty fifty chance to be homozygous for pea comb/green eggs.

And here is a photo that shows F1 and F2 roos.

 

[protodon]

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Okay, now I'm confused again. If they are homozygous for the blue egg gene, then they won't be olive eggers, right?

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

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Okay, now I'm confused again. If they are homozygous for the blue egg gene, then they won't be olive eggers, right?

Olive eggs are the result of blue eggs and dark brown eggs, all expressed at the same time.

People refer to the "blue" egg gene because without the interference of any other genes, the eggs are indeed blue. But blue eggs in the presence of brown egg genes gives you the appearance of green eggs, and blue when combined with the dark brown coatings of Marans and Welsummers, gives the appearance of olive eggs.

There is no green egg gene, or olive egg gene, just combinations of the blue egg gene with various brown egg genes.