2022 Flock

Here are the gorgeous colored eggs coming from our 2022 Flock of Olive Eggers!

Tay{at}SilverHomestead.com if you have questions about how we are breeding speckled olive eggers or read more info here!

This image shows some of the prettiest eggs we collected in fall 2021. These were individually saved and then photographed together. The jade green eggs were both laid by the same F2 Olive Egger hen from Sky Girl Farm (purchased as hatching eggs). The speckled olive eggs are our own crosses of Whiting True Blue Roo x Welsummer Hens or Blue Copper Marans Roo x Whiting True Blue Hens. First generation offspring lays speckled eggs!

A closer view of the best eggs. The egg in the center is a blown out egg saved from our F5 rooster’s sibling who did not develop in the incubator. It was laid by his mother, who is owned by Sky Girl Farm. Our F5 Speckled Olive Egger ROOSTER, “Cocoa Puff” is carrying those genes. I do not own a hen who lays that color egg. The speckled olive egger eggs are our own Whiting x Welsummer and Marans x Whiting crosses.

The blown out egg, with its bottom hole, is more visible in this image (our F5 rooster hatched from the same dark chocolate egg). The two Welsummer eggs come from the hatchmate sister of our Welsummer roo, “Kip”. The jade green eggs are laid by the same F2 Olive Egger hen from Sky Girl Farm. The top egg is from a Whiting True Blue hen under roosters Cocoa Puff (F5 SOE) and Kip (Welsummer). Scroll down for flock pictures!

3 Day Collection from the Speckled Olive Egger Pen

While it is fun to take “best of” pictures, here is what a 3 day collection of some eggs from the Speckled Olive Egger pen looked like in December 2021. Not all of our olive egger hens were laying. One of our hens, an F1 HB OE from Sky Girl Farm, was hatched from a heavy bloom light olive egg and while she does lay a shade of light olive, she did not inherit her mother’s heavy bloom. (Sky Girl Farm eggs are marked. The others are Welsummer eggs laid by hens purchased from Hoover’s Hatchery and our own F1 Olive Egger crosses plus a blue egg at each end from Whiting hens in with the OE roosters to make F1’s.) The green eggs showing some light speckling are Whiting x Welsummer F1 cross. Every egg from the Speckled Olive egger pen is fertilized by a rooster carrying speckling genes, even if the mother’s egg is not speckled.

Eggs from our Speckled Olive Egger Pen and an Olive Egger Back Cross pen (the darker olive eggs) collected in Dec 2021. Back Cross pen is a Black Copper Marans roo from Clucks & Waddles Homestead (breeder of dark layer Marans) over unrelated F1 and BC1 Olive Egger hens that were bred using a different Blue Copper Marans roo.

The variations in speckling are beautiful.

Here is the info on what cross laid each egg in the Back Cross pen.

We cross Welsummer hens with Whiting True Blue roos to produce F1 Speckled Olive Eggers. All our Welsummers were purchased directly from Hoover’s Hatchery which has heavy speckling in their lines.

Here are some of our SOE eggs with the best speckling and what F1 cross produced them. Welsummer hens who lay an egg with a lighter background color produce offspring who lay the lighter speckled sage color above. Not every egg laid is speckled.

This image shows the reality of many speckled olive egger layers. The speckles can be heavy or nearly absent depending on the day. Still, the speckling genes are present in the mother and amplified in the offspring when a Speckled gene carrying father is used, like our F5 SOE roo or our Welsummer roo.

Our Olive Egger flock pasture ranging in November 2021. Cocoa Puff (left; F5 Speckled Olive Egger), Mr. Darcy (center, black Whiting True Blue) and Kip (back, Welsummer) mingle among the girls. Our Olive Egger hens are predominantly shades of blue (gray). In this flock are a few purebred Whiting True Blue females (gold head, blue body) who provide some guaranteed olive laying F1 crosses, which hatch from blue eggs. The black F2 Olive Egger hen in the center is one of our only females from Sky Girl Farm. (We had 3 females and 9 males hatch.)

“Cocoa Puff” is an F5 Speckled Olive Egger Rooster, hatched from a dark chocolate egg from Sky Girl Farm in March 2021. We are crossing him with F1 and F2 Olive Egger hens, in addition to Whiting True Blue hens to produce dark speckled olive eggers. He gets his name from the egg color he hatched from.

Here is a picture of Cocoa Puff as a newly hatched chick with his egg shell. It really was the color of Cocoa Puff cereal! I used the Chick Hatching Record free PDF to keep careful notes about the chicks I hatched from purchased hatching eggs. Notes and photos really help keep your olive egger breeding project organized!

Whiting True Blue roo, “Mr. Darcy” with four of our hens. He was moved to a separate pen in December 2021 so we could cross all our Olive Egger girls with Speckled Gene carrying Roos. The yellow leg bands on the two hens in the center identify them as our F1 Whiting x Welsummer cross. They get their silver color from their father, our Blue Silver Duckwing Whiting True Blue roo, “Fitzwilliam“.

F5 SOE Rooster Cocoa Puff with Olive Egger and Whiting True Blue hens. He should produce offspring that lay gorgeous speckled eggs in rich avocado shades and deep brown tones! (F2 and F3 offspring have a 50% chance of laying a brown egg. Opt to hatch from blue F1 eggs if you want guaranteed olive layers.)

Black Copper Marans roo “Cocoa” (bred by Clucks & Waddles Homestead in Montgomery, Tx) is from a dark chocolate line and is over the olive egger hens in the Back Cross pen. He is not the father of the Olive Egger hens he is being mated to.

Here are some of the olive eggs from the Back Cross pen. They are being fertilized by Black Copper Marans roo “Cocoa” (shown above) to produce very dark, rich avocado toned olives. 50% chance dark brown layers. (Cocoa is not the father of the adult Olive Egger hens he is over; he is completely unrelated to them.)

F1 Whiting True Blue x Welsummer cross chicks. These hatch from the speckled Welsummer Eggs. Many are born with wild type coloring but our black Whiting roo “Mr. Darcy” also fathers some dark chocolate and black chicks when bred to our Welsummer hens. Mr. Darcy is carrying one dominant black and one recessive wild type gene. For those interested in genetics, a normal, purebred “Partridge” colored Welsummer is actually a Red Duckwing with genes: e+/e+ s+/s+ Mh/Mh

Our F5 Speckled Olive Egger roo “Cocoa Puff” will produce black chicks with some of his Fibromelanistic characteristics (black legs & beaks). By crossing him with so many uniquely colored blue hens, we hope a portion of his offspring will inherit other feather colors. I use 1/4 inch Medium Force orthodontic bands to leg band newly hatched chicks. I also use hatch bags (simple mesh produce bags) in the incubator to keep different breeds or crosses separate. (Affiliate links.)

Speckled Olive Egger chicks hatched on our homestead May 2022.

The shells the above chicks hatched from in May 2022. Hens that lay a smooth egg were all under Speckled gene carrying roosters to produce Speckled Olive eggers. The various speckled brown eggs, including the heavy bloom brown in the back, were laid by Welsummers purchased from Hoover’s Hatchery. The dark Marans eggs were laid by a pullet purchased from Clucks and Waddles Homestead in Montgomery, Texas.

An overhead view of the egg shells. These were collected in mid-April 2022.

speckled olive egger chicks fibro green blue seaglass speckles chicken eggs — Black & Blue Fibro chicks hatched February 1, 2022 from eggs shown below. Photo credit: Laura Key

Blue Fibro and Wild Type Speckled Olive Egger chicks hatched February 1, 2022 from various speckled olive egger eggs shown below. Photo credit: Laura Key

These blue fibro chicks were fathered by our F5 Speckled Olive Egger roo “Cocoa Puff”. The chipmunk chicks are F1 Welsummer cross Speckled Olive eggers. By using 3 separate breeding pens and different roosters, we are breeding for a range of speckled egg shades AND unique feather colors to give the Speckled Olive Egger flock gorgeous diversity! Photo credit: Laura Key

This fibromelanistic or “Fibro” chick has black legs and feet, a black beak and a black straight comb. Down color is actually dark blue. This individual was fathered by our F5 SOE roo “Cocoa Puff”. Photo credit: Laura Key

One Fibro Blue and two Fibro Black chicks, hatched February 2022. Photo Credit: Laura Key

Blue (gray) Speckled Olive Egger chicks. An example of the color shell they hatched from is shown. Our F5 Speckled Olive Egger roo fertilized the Blue F1 Olive Egger hen’s eggs to produce offspring that should lay speckled dark olive shades. Photo Credit: Laura Key

These cuties are an F2 Olive Egger Hen x Welsummer Roo cross. An example of the color shell they hatched from is shown. Speckled eggs with vibrant green background colors are expected. Photo Credit: Laura Key

One of our best Whiting x Welsummer F1 Speckled Olive Egger hens was mated to both a Welsummer roo and our F5 Speckled Olive Egger roo. An example of the shell they hatched from is shown. Each roo fathered one of these chicks. The chipmunk chick is the Welsummer roo’s and is expected to lay a more heavily speckled medium olive. The black fibro chick is the F5 roo’s and is expected to lay a very dark speckled olive. Photo credit: Laura Key

These are Back Cross 1 chicks. Their mother is a blue F1 Olive Egger. She was bred to an unrelated Black Copper Marans roo to create Back Cross 1 offspring. An example of the color shell they hatched from is shown. They are expected to lay darker olive and brown tones with speckling present. Photo Credit: Laura Key

These are Welsummer Back Cross 1 chicks. Their blue and wild type feathered, olive-laying mothers were bred to a Welsummer roo to create Back Cross 1 offspring. An example of the color shell they hatched from is shown. (The mothers are our Whiting x Welsummer F1 crosses who don’t lay the heaviest speckled eggs.) They are expected to lay speckled olive and brown tones. Wild type (chipmunk) chicks inherit two copies of the recessive wild type (e+) feather gene. Photo Credit: Laura Key

These are F1 Whiting x Welsummer Speckled Olive Egger chicks. They hatch from Welsummer eggs which are fertilized by our black Whiting roo “Mr. Darcy”, who is carrying one dominant black and one recessive wild type gene. He can produce black, chipmunk and occasionally a chocolate colored chick when crossed with Welsummer hens. These are a repeat of the breeding that produced the brown speckled green eggs shown in the images below. Photo credit: Laura Key

Click HERE to Download our Free Printable Chick Hatching Record that lets you track who hatched from what color egg!

A close up of eggs from the speckled olive egger and back cross olive egger pens.

Eggs collected Dec 23-25, 2021 from 3 pens. Offspring from 4 different roos should lay a HUGE range of shades, all in darker olive, avocado, and a small percent of rich cocoa tones. If you like how this looks, you could add purebred Welsummers (speckled brown eggs) and blue layers in addition to Speckled Olive Eggers to give you the exact same egg basket this year!

A dozen eggs collected Dec 2021 from 4 pens. The blue eggs are from our Extra-Jumbo layer (duck egg sized eggs) who is being bred to F5 SOE Roo “Cocoa Puff” and Welsummer Roo “Kip” to create jumbo olive egg laying chicks.

A mix of mostly green speckled olive eggs collected from 4 pens Dec 2021. Each hen lays a completely different shade, making for a very diverse egg basket!

Eggs collected Dec 21 through January 3 2022.

A striking assortment of olives, greens, heavy bloom blues and bright blues, all fertilized by 3 different speckled gene carrying roosters.

A particularly pretty mix of all speckles collected January 2022.

Two dozen eggs from the speckled olive egger pens January 14, 2022.

A closer view of all the colors and speckles.

A collection of every color from our nest boxes. Egg carton stamps are available in my Etsy shop.

Eggs collected Feb 3-7, 2022

Eggs collected Feb 3-7, 2022.

Eggs collected around February 22, 2022

Shells our chicks hatched from in May 2022

Speckled olives, purebred Welsummer and a funky Marans “misfire” egg. May 2022. (The dark egg with khaki speckles is the Marans misfire egg where the normally dark spots were all rubbed off during the laying process!)

Purebred Whiting True Blue Info

Click the image to view pictures of our purebred Whiting True Blue flock!

Here are pictures of the 3 females that hatched from Sky Girl Farm hatching eggs and what they lay as adults!

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