How to get true Olive Eggers?

[Lilorp14]

I read an article today that said Black Copper Marans + True (Whatever that means) Amaracaunas = Olive Eggers. Is that true? Also, I want to have the real green green eggs.


Does it take multiple generations to get this or is it certain breed mixing?

Thanks!
(My desired green)

 

[The Moonshiner]

Yes. But a couple of things.
When they say true ameraucana they mean true ameraucana not hatchery or feed store Americana, ameraucana, americauna, araucana etc. Those are all Easter eggers.
You need a true ameraucana to be certain they carry two copies of the blue egg gene.
Black copper marans. It is important to get some that lay the darkest eggs you can find. Dark dark brown will give you the truest olive colored eggs. Not so dark brown eggs will give you green instead of olive.
Breed the ameraucana to the marans. That will give you 100% olive (or at least green) eggers.
After the first cross all offspring after that whether bred back to marans, back to ameraucana or to each other will produce some olive eggers and some brown egg layers.
Sticking with first generation crosses will be the only way to continue producing all olive eggers.

 

[CuzChickens]

Supposedly, yes. However, the more times you breed a first generation Olive Egger back to a pure Maran, the darker Olive egg you will get.

 

[nicalandia]

Expensive as well! Never found a true Ameraucana at TSC!

There is really no need to have True Ameraucana, Easter Eggers that lay blue/green eggs is the least minimum you need, when crossed back to Marans if all of the pullets hatched with Pea comb they have about 94% chance of laying Olive eggs, if any of the pullets hatch with a single comb(quite probable as many Easter Eggers are heterozygous for the blue egg shell gene) she has the same 94% chance of laying dark brown eggs, that is because the blue egg shell gene(O) and the Pea comb gene(P) are located on short arm of chromosome 1 and they are closely located with a distance of about 6 centimorgans(or map units) that means they don't segregate independently as any other genes would(a distance of at least 20 centimorgan would allow that) so if a pullet from a cross of EE and Maran inherits the pea comb and her dame is a proven blue/green egger then you can be very happy about that because you just hatched a Olive Egger

 

[nicalandia]

You know how cool are Autosexing blue egg layers like the Cream Legbar ares? Well I think it would be even cooler if one would start a "Autosexing Olive Egger" breed..


And it would not be hard at all, just get yourself a few Black Copper Marans, a Cream Legbar rooster and breed back to BCM to get back body and type while keeping sex linked barring, then it would be a matter of making homozygous barred cockerels...

The other way would be to breed Golden Cuckoo Marans breed to Legbar or Ameraucana..

 

[The Moonshiner]

Yes all you need is the blue egg gene.
I would not use an EE myself.
I get where the other poster would and would follow the pea comb to chase the blue egg gene.
I would use a pure ameraucana because it will have two genes for the blue eggs. It will pass a blue gene to every chick so no trying to follow the blue egg gene.
An EE could have two blue egg genes or one. If one about half the chicks produced will not get a blue egg gene and that's a lot of wasted chicks.
Your first generation chicks will only have one gene for blue eggs. Half their offspring will not receive the blue egg gene. Every time you cross back to a marans your producing fewer chicks with the blue egg gene. If you cross back to blue egg gene bird you increase the likely hood of continuing with the blue egg gene but you'll then lose the darkness of the green.
With enough breeding, knowing what you're breeding and test breeding you can get birds with two copies of the blue egg genes and the dark brown genes to get the dark green eggs but it isn't easy and is time consuming.
In general breeding olive eggers generation to generation is a dead end project. In the long run most end up back to brown egg layers or regular green egg layers.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Yes 50% if you're only breeding birds with the blue egg gene back to the marans.
If you're breeding all offspring back you get less every generation.
Or yes you can throw away 1/2 the chicks each generation and continue on to get 50% each generation.
That's my point OE projects produce a lot of useless chicks. That's why id start with a pure ameraucana. At least that's one generation of getting 100% keepers.
Back breeding to marans will never produce anything but 50% chicks that carry one blue egg gene. You will never get any to breed true.
If breed one blue egg gene birds back to pure ameraucana at some point. Then you can get all blue egg gene chicks again. And half would get two genes for blue eggs. At least you can get something that would breed true for blue eggs with two of those chicks or breeding one back to ameraucana.
That would be my goal.
That also would mean you would have to then breed harder for the dark brown genes.
That was also my point. You have to breed for one or the other either the blue genes or the dark brown genes.
Its always one or the other and back and forth.
To get pure true breeding OE it seems starter to start with pure ameraucana and breed towards offspring that are carrying two genes for blue so then you can continue on with only breeding the darkest green egg layers to hopefully get to olive.
If you're just looking to sell OE chicks imo it is least hassle and more chicks that lay olive to breed pure ameraucana to absolutely darkest brown egg layers and only do that cross and only sell F1 chicks.

 

[mandelyn]

The dark green eggs we get are out of a cross I did with a Splash Isbar/Silverudd rooster over Splash/Blue Marans hens.

I have 4 Legbar hens left to try it that way, with a choice of Blue Birchen or Black Copper Marans boys. First I want to see what they hatch from their current rooster, a massive EE/Niederrheiner hybrid. The Silverudd and Legbars both are smaller birds than we like to have since we're doing dual purpose, so the purebreds have been phased out and we're hybridizing for size/neat eggs. The Legbar and OE girls are running with the big rooster now, test eggs in the incubator as we speak!

The Splash hens from the first cross are on the right.

Basically though, the purebred Marans are getting darker and darker each generation, so if I can hang onto a couple of true blue/green layers I should end up seeing a richer green over time. Trying not to be impatient on how the olive to olive will end up!

I no longer have any purebred Isbar/Silverrudd birds, the Legbars are little bit bigger than they were so we'll see what happens there.

 

[mandelyn]

Oh! This is a pullet from the Splash OE hens when bred back to a Black Copper Marans rooster. Blue Copper! Anxiously waiting on her eggs! Finally got a decent picture of her today.

 

[featherhead007]

Expensive as well! Never found a true Ameraucana at TSC!