The Olive-Egger thread!

[CantSkipThis1]

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Thanks!! Cute and sweet! I hope he stays sweet. The lady I bought the chicks from is going to give me some REAL BCM chicks in a few weeks. Shes feels bad that she sold them to me as BCM's and they ended up being some mix. She bought the eggs on ebay from a good buyer that she often buys from. Who knows what happened.

 

[Wynette]

Sounds like she's doing you right! I like to hear that. Mistakes sometimes happen, but when they do, a responsible breeder will make it up to you.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Here's my olive egger cockeral. (from Ruth's eggs) He was 13 weeks in this picture, I need to get a current photo of him as he's changing rapidly now. It's a horrible picture taken in full sun, so it doesn't show his lacing, but I just LOVE his beard. He has the fullest beard I've ever seen. (it almost blocks his eyes)

 

[Wynette]

Kelly, he's pretty! I like his light copper hackle coloring! One of my olive egger hens has that, and it's really pretty!

 

[Happy Chooks]

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Thanks. He's a lot prettier in person, you can really see the lacing. There's a lot more copper in his hackles now and he has rust color on his wings. I think he'll make some gorgeous olive egger babies. (planning on mating him to my BCM pullets and my Ameraucana pullets (when they all start laying that is) and see what I get.

He'll get to stick around as long as he's a good boy to me and my hens. He's a stubbon one, that's for sure. I've been handling him a bit, and when I put him down the little turd tried to wing dance at me. So he got an up close and personal view of my boot. (gently of course) He hasn't done it since though.

 

[Wynette]

Hmmm....guess he's confused. Or...has a foot fetish.

 

[hipeatall]

Our Olive Egger Chicks are growing like crazy! They are 5 weeks in these pictures.
The first 3 pictures of are some of our barred Olive Eggers, I think the darker ones are girls and the lighter ones are boys and I'm pretty sure they all have peacombs.

Below is our Blue (I think, or maybe Splash) Olive Egger. I'm thinking this blue is a boy... and after looking a bit at the chicken calculator I am thinking he might be a keeper since, if I'm doing this correctly (fingers crossed), when I breed him with the barred Olive Egger girls I will be able to sex the chicks at hatch... boys will be barred (white head spot) and girls will be solid black or solid blue (no white head spot). Does this sound right?

I also have the CBM boy (pictured below) that hatched out of a super dark chocolate brown egg. This guy might also be a keeper because according to the chicken calculator, if I put him in with my OE girls I would get barred boys and solid black girls (again making sexing at hatch possible)... and I am thinking using him would give me even darker olive eggs...

I would love to hear others thoughts on these.

 

[Lensters]

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Yes, you are correct as long as your hens are homozygous for barring, which they should be if the pullets are significantly darker than the cockerels.

You are only a couple of steps away from Barred Blues!

 

[mamdoe]

We have are coop 95% done, so I went out and bought a few new birds!

One is a 5 week old that I was told is an Olive Egger. I'm going to try for a picture of her tomorrow..but in the meantime....
If she has a single comb does that mean she is definitely not going to lay olive eggs? I think she is rumpless, although I have never seen a rumpless bird in person so I can't be certain.

 

[hipeatall]

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So, when does sexing Olive Eggers become a no brainer? Mine are currently 6-7 weeks old. I keep staring at them going back and forth... is that comb pinker than the others... is this comb bigger than the other combs... are those feathers girlie or roo-ie... etc. So, you know, just basically making my self crazy

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