The Olive-Egger thread!

[HHandbasket]

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I'm sure the eggs will be tasty and yummy, as they are from all my girls!

I'm trying to get assorted egg colors, though. I didn't WANT another brown egg layer. If I did, I wouldn't have gotten an olive egger. So I guess I'll just keep her and pass up on getting the BCM since I apparently already have my dark brown egg layer. :|

 

[Illia]

NeeleysAVLChicks: Those yellow OE chicks will surely turn out to be an interesting one when it grows up!

ps - You never told me how your New Year's Hatch went.

 

[NicoleRM]

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I'm about to start a similar project working toward lavender, feather shanked, bearded/muffed OEs. Maybe with copper hackles. I'm calling them Olivenders.

I've been playing with the chicken calculator, but I wish I had a better grasp of feather color genetics, especially what is dominant/recessive and how alleles are expressed.

 

[Illia]

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I'm about to start a similar project working toward lavender, feather shanked, bearded/muffed OEs. Maybe with copper hackles. I'm calling them Olivenders.

I've been playing with the chicken calculator, but I wish I had a better grasp of feather color genetics, especially what is dominant/recessive and how alleles are expressed.

Do you want Lavender OE's or Isabel Birchen OE's ?

To do the Lavenders you'll need a Lav Ameraucana x Black Marans (or BC with very, very little coppering) then take that offspring and cross it back to either another Olive Egger with the same breeding or a Lav Ameraucana (which may ruin the olive coloration)

It will be a tricky business, and honestly I'm not sure of how you can keep a proper olive colored egg AND the lavender color without constantly breeding siblings to each other. Because taking them back to the Lav Ameraucana will just make green eggers.

 

[Wynette]

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I'm about to start a similar project working toward lavender, feather shanked, bearded/muffed OEs. Maybe with copper hackles. I'm calling them Olivenders.

I've been playing with the chicken calculator, but I wish I had a better grasp of feather color genetics, especially what is dominant/recessive and how alleles are expressed.

Nicole, that's a huge challenge for me. I have a poultry genetics book and each time I pick it up, I end up more frustrated than the last.

Okay, so all this talk of my olive egger stock laying brown eggs.....makes me ticked!

And it's weird, because I've hatched probably 50 or 60 of my own, and NONE of mine have laid anything but olive. Darnit anyway! I did have several single-combed cockerels that I ended up selling as I didn't need them, so perhaps if they'd been pullets, they'd have laid brown?

 

[Morgan7782]

Wynette I apoligize if my posts came across as rude or badmouthy. I really didn't intend them to be that way. I am new to chickens, especially genetics and meant to only try and clarify. I am not dissapointed either way or whatever she lays, she is still beauiful and... Well... On the inside they are all chickens right?

Anywho, I am really really sorry if anything I said offended anybody or anything. I hadn't meant to.. Whatever egg she lays will be great, and she is a pretty girl so I am not upset or anything I am sorry if it came across that way

I know you know a LOT more about genetics then I do, most the people on this thread do, but I am still trying to learn heh..

 

[Medicine Man]

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She probably wouldn't lay a dark brown egg, probably just brown. Mine lays one thats all chalky in texture and inconsistent in color. Not enough of the dark egg genes, not enough paint.

One of my *potential* OEs just started laying. The eggs are dark with speckles just like a welsummer. Not olive, but still dark and very pretty.
They should show color from at least one of the parents so I would expect something nice for you either way. Why would you just get a plain brown egg when neither parent is a "plain brown egg" bird? Gee- maybe she'll lay a white egg

Seriously, don't give up hope.

Because if you don't get the blue egg gene, and you lose much of the dark egg genes from the Marans because of the mixed-breeding, then what do you think you get? Often times a not-so-dark brown egg, like I said "plain brown".

No need to be argumentative if you don't understand, I'm happy to explain.

 

[Illia]

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Curious, what sort of "brown" are you getting from your single combed birds?


Also, ya know what I'm eyeing for? A "golden" olive like what some of your original OE's produce. I would love to go for a more golden type color like that. They then won't exactly be Olive Eggers, but Golden Eggers.

 

[Medicine Man]

You guys from Sacramento, a couple hours north of you are GUARANTEED olive egger eggs. That is, every peep is guaranteed to have the blue egg gene because the genetics of the NA Quechua mothers are known. 100% for F1 generation to have light/medium olive eggs and 75% for the dark olive-laying junglebirds.

edit to say oops they're not for sale, but really it's time for breeders to step up their game in the Olive Egg development and stop tainting Marans and others. Know the genetics and represent truthfully. If you don't then you're not and you shouldn't be.

 

[HHandbasket]

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Dang, don't tell us about good birds that ain't for sale! LOL!