Gorgeous, speckled olive and avocado tinted eggs that seem impossible for a chicken to have laid are all the rage! Dark, earthy, mossy speckled olive eggs top backyard keeper’s wish lists season after season. Rich cocoa, brilliant jade and pine forest green shells are showing up in online photos, leaving folks wanting their own chicks that lay such oddities. We’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks as our speckled olive egger breeding program has progressed to help others looking to add these delightfully freckled orbs to their egg baskets!
Breeding Speckled Olive Eggers
Speckled eggs seem to have taken the world by storm! Formal breed standards may forbid speckling in show bird eggs but that has not stopped the buying public from going crazy over chicken eggs that are erratically freckled like wild bird eggs. The frenzy has even generated excitement in the world of quail breeding, where buyers are anxious to get their hands on speckled celadon eggs.
The Most Popular Barnyard Mix on Earth
Olive Eggers may be a ‘mutt’ breed but they are one of the most sought-after hybrids, with unique speckled hatching eggs regularly selling for $60 to $85 per dozen. Even at these prices, wait lists can be months long with buyers eagerly snatching up any available. So how do you get in on this action and begin breeding speckled olive eggers yourself?
Not Just Any Roo Will Do
Remember how I said breed standards typically prohibit specking on show bird eggs? Because of this, you will need to hunt for a special rooster or two to use in your breeding program. And you might end up avoiding show quality stock. The rooster must hatch from a heavily speckled egg himself. The best way to guarantee this is to hatch and raise your own breeding roo. The second best way to guarantee this is to buy a cockerel chick from a breeder who will give you the shell he hatched from. (This empty shell will come in handy later when people will want to see an endless number of pictures.)
What Breeds Will Work?
If you can find very, very heavily speckled Marans, Welsummers or F1-F5 Olive Eggers, use these boys. The rooster’s speckling genes are the most important. It is handy if he is an Olive Egger carrying a blue egg gene, making him more likely to produce olive laying daughters in future generations.
Snatch Up Those Olive Egger Roos!
Olive egger roosters are some of the hardest boys to re-home but they should not be. They are hugely beneficial to the backyard poultry keeper for a number of reasons. First, he’s generally carrying one blue egg gene and can produce a really neat-looking egg basket. Second, his Marans or Welsummer ancestry helps him grow to a generous size. His offspring will tend to be similar in weight to dual purpose breeds, with daughters who lay 240 to 280 eggs per year and sons who dress out at a nice weight for the table. Lastly, he is the star of the olive egger pen and his offspring’s highly desirable F2 or F3 eggs can bring in more income than almost all the other purebreds.
Did You Know?
As crazy as it sounds, city folks have a natural wariness about consuming funky looking, green shelled eggs. If grocery store shortages ever lead to thieving, guess which eggs will be the least likely to be stolen? The booger-toned olive eggs!
Mix, Mix, Mix!
The most incredible speckled olive eggs come from crossing olive egger roos and hens together. This regularly produces the richest olives, the heaviest speckling, the thickest blooms and the craziest colors. Back-crossing to re-introduce blue egg genes is useful every couple of generations if you find your eggs growing too drab olive.
What Dark Layer Breeds Should I Use for Speckled Eggs?
The best and most consistent speckling is coming from certain Marans lines and Welsummers. If you want really dark, rich, moss colored olives, select a heavily speckled Marans from a local breeder. If you’re interested in pistachio and avocado toned olives dotted with visible speckles, consider Welsummers. I suggest using true Ameraucanas or purebred Whiting True Blues, which both carry two blue egg genes and have pea combs, to help you determine which future olive egger chicks are most likely carrying the blue egg gene. This saves time and money since you won’t need to grow out every pullet to determine what she lays. (One-blue-gene-carrying Easter Eggers are not hens I would regularly use for Speckled Olive Egger breeding.)
The Secret to HEAVY Speckling
I’ll share a little-known secret to breeding the heaviest speckled eggs that you can, but be aware that it takes a couple years of work. Use a very heavily speckled Marans rooster that you hatched from a heavily speckled line and breed him to his hatchmate sisters from the same heavily speckled line. This should produce hens who lay very, very heavily speckled Marans eggs. Now breed these Marans hens to a homozygous blue rooster to produce guaranteed speckled olive laying F1 offspring. The F1 offspring should lay a sage or medium green olive egg with some brown speckles. These F1 hens should then be bred to a hatchmate F1 OE brother to create F2 speckled olive eggers OR be back-crossed to the heavily speckled Marans roo to darken the olive tone and keep the speckling heavy. Likewise, if you happen to have F4 or F5 Olive Eggers laying dark cocoa eggs with heavy speckling, you can use these birds just like you would use purebred Marans for the same purpose.
Another Way to Get a Double Dose of Speckles
Welsummer hens with heavy shell freckling under an F2 Speckled Olive Egger roo should produce chicks who get a double dose of speckles. If you’ve used pea combed blue breeds to begin your olive egger line and your roo has one, a pea comb in the Welsummer x F2 OE offspring indicates the likely presence of the blue egg gene. Keep the pea combed pullets and cockerels. The pullet’s eggs will show you what genes her brother is carrying and you can use him to produce consistently speckled eggs from then on, since he will have inherited a double dose from both parents. If you are lucky enough to already have a hen laying speckled olive eggs, mating her to a speckled olive egger roo will also produce chicks who inherit a double dose of speckling.
Breeding for Feather Color, Too
Black Copper Marans have been used for so many years in Olive Egger breeding that many olive egger pens produce an abundance of black chicks because Marans black genes are dominant. Blue and splash Marans have helped introduce some feather color diversity. The wild type Welsummer coloring tends to be recessive but as you breed subsequent generations, you’ll find chicks hatch out in adorable chipmunk shades. Again, this is where an F2 Speckled Olive Egger roo can really help. If you can find one in a gorgeous color and/or carrying a blue gene, snatch him up! Your breeding pen will become a beautiful mix of individuals who lay a stunning array of eggs.
NEW Update: Our Secret Recipe for breeding Splash Feathered Speckled Dark Olive Eggers is now in our shop!
Troubleshooting Egg Color Issues:
Fixing Drab Toned Olives
Sometimes olive egger hens lay shades of ‘olive’ that are more drab khaki colored, with hardly any green to them. This is sometimes caused by using a Marans rooster who was dark on the egg color scale (a 7 or higher) with no speckling over a blue laying hen who had poor, faint blue coloring to her eggs (such as a hatchery Americana/Easter Egger). It should come as no surprise that this can be remedied with your Speckled Olive Egger rooster if you know he is carrying a good quality blue egg gene. Crossing them will produce offspring with a 50% chance of laying an olive egg that should be more green than mom’s. All offspring should have some speckling, thanks to dad’s genes, so even the brown layers could produce interesting eggs.
Fixing Brown Laying “Olives”
If you end up with a brown laying “olive egger”, breed her to a Speckled Olive Egger rooster. These may not be speckled olive eggers but it is safe to assume about half of the mother’s speckling could show up on her daughter’s eggs. If she had light speckling, the offspring will probably be classic olive eggers. If heavy, the offspring may be speckled olive eggers.
Fixing Mud Toned Eggs
If you’re getting smooth, non-speckled eggs the color of brown mud, the issue is likely show quality Marans heritage in the hen’s ancestry. “Stained repartition” (uneven, dark speckling over a lighter background) is a fault in show quality Marans who should have a thick, dark, smooth tint overlay. Your hen may be carrying the smooth, even-pigmented show-quality Marans overlay, which is muddying the color of her eggs. Crossing her to a rooster with good speckling and a blue egg gene can help her offspring lay more interesting looking speckled olive eggs. Breeding her to a homozygous blue roo could produce pine tree green shades that you may find desirable but it will lighten the eggs.
Starting Off With the Best
If you are just starting out, consider using true Ameraucana or Whiting True Blue hens who carry two copies of the blue egg gene, have pea combs and lay eggs with rich blue shells. The pea comb gene will make it easy to identify which future generations of chicks might be carrying the blue egg gene and lay olive eggs. The richest blue undertones will also make olives really pop! (Note: You must purchase purebred, true Ameraucanas from a local breeder. “Ameraucanas” or “Americanas” from a hatchery are always Easter Eggers and do not carry two blue egg genes.)
Pictures are Everything
The first year of producing F1 olive eggers for sale is hard because you don’t always have an example of what the offspring will lay. It is best to do a test-hatch for yourself and grow out all the females until laying age. When people are buying hatching eggs, they want to see pictures of everything. The hens, the rooster, the eggs the hens lay, the egg the rooster hatched from, the eggs the offspring lay – and more than one picture of each, too! Until you have eggs from the F1 speckled olive egger hens you bred, expect hatching egg sales to lag.
Photograph the Chicks you Hatch, Too!
As soon as you do provide a picture of your speckled olive eggs, buyers will want to buy those as hatching eggs…and then demand to see pictures of what the (not yet even born) F2 offspring will lay! For this reason the very first hatch of each generation should be for yourself and not for sale. This should give you the newest generation’s eggs to photograph before the yearly spring buying rush begins. Be sure to photograph the chicks that come from your hatching eggs as buyers will very much want to see the rainbow of chick colors possible!
Did I Mention You Cannot Have Enough Pictures?
I have a website FULL of pictures, pictures and more pictures. And it still is not enough, especially of speckled olive eggs. No sooner do I post new egg pictures than someone messages to ask if they can see chick pictures. Pictures of chicks and juveniles go up and someone else wants even more recent egg pictures. And rooster pictures. And pictures of the eggs the roosters hatched from. And MORE EGG PICTURES! If you are selling hatching eggs, plan on photographing your olive eggs every ten days, staged in various ways. Each photo shoot should produce a few good images. As soon as these are shared, people will want to see more, More, MORE! It is also a good idea to show how olive eggs lighten as the laying season progresses to set realistic buyer expectations.
Watermark Those Images
Speckled Olive Egger breeding is honest work that takes skill, an understanding of genetics and patience. You should have a logo watermark or way to brand the image as your own, especially if you are selling hatching eggs. Folks who stumble across your pictures on social media should have an easy time finding your farm online from the watermark. Regularly posting pictures of your beautiful eggs are a great way to have guaranteed hatching egg orders all spring.
Selling Camo Eggers
Breeders are having fun creatively naming their projects and the eggs they produce. One example is “Camo Eggers” which is really a collection of F1, F2 and maybe F3 hatching eggs that should produce offspring who lay differing shades of medium olive, dark olive and unusual earth tones. Typically the chicks are fathered by different roosters which is why you get the camo assortment of greens and browns. If you’re interested in offering Camo Eggers, you’ll need to hatch some yourself to grow out so you have the camo eggs to photograph. In this instance you will keep all the pullets, including the ones with straight combs, so you have a mix of green, moss, drab, and khaki egg layers. Buyers will need to be shown that their hatching eggs will be blue, chocolate, green, olive and maybe even brown but the offspring will lay camo eggs like the ones you photographed because you are repeating the breeding that created the camo layers. There is no need to sell all F1 – F3 olive hatching eggs as camo eggers; it is just one way to market your unique mix of hatching eggs if desired.
The Newest Trend: Speckled Easter Eggers
Speckled Easter Eggers are the newest up-and-coming trend. Breeders are discovering that speckling ‘overlays’ inherited from fathers will generally be passed on through two generations. This allows deliberate crossing in order to lighten the background color to a more pastel Easter Egger shade. Speckled peach, cream, mustard, spearmint green, and seafoam blue-green colors are highly sought after.
Speckled Blue Eggs?
Speckling over true blue eggs is technically impossible since the overlay genes do deposit some faint color, turning the shells more green than blue. But some breeders are getting close to a sea glass blue speckled egg!
Speckled Olive Egger Hatching Egg Pricing
There will always be buyers who scoff at paying more than $2 per egg but they really shouldn’t. A dozen speckled olive egger hatching eggs usually represents a minimum of two years breeding work and at hatch is producing a third (or later) generation carrying the genes needed to lay a breathtaking range of colors. When you consider the cost of incubating, hatching, feeding, sheltering, protecting, cleaning and growing out six to twelve hens until laying age for each generation and color cross of F1 and F2 speckled olive eggers (minimum of $25 per hen; typically $350 for a dozen hens and a roo), paying $10 per hatching egg suddenly becomes a bargain.
Can You Put a Price On Time Savings?
You are saving your buyers years of breeding work and at least $500 in costs of raising, feeding and housing multiple breeding groups, including more than one crowing rooster. Instead your buyer receives the instant gratification of hatching pullets that will lay a stunning rainbow of speckled eggs from a single carton of hatching eggs at a one-time price. She will only need to feed them until laying age to have an egg basket that looks similar to yours. Set your hatching egg prices fairly for the work and expense involved and clever buyers, who have done the mental math and know the value of what you are offering, will clamor to be added to your waiting list. (As of this writing, there are no hatcheries offering F2 and beyond olive egger chicks and none offering speckled olive eggers. Speckled olive hatching eggs & chicks simply cannot be purchased elsewhere at any price.)
2023 Update: Cackle Hatchery has begun offering “F2 Olive Egger” eggs but if you read the fine print, they are all back-crossed to homozygous blue or Marans roosters. These eggs should be labeled as “Back Cross 1”.
2024 Update: Cackle Hatchery has updated the images of eggs laid by their “F2 Olive Egger” flock (which are still back-crossed) but the egg colors are beautiful!
Tip: Most buyers want to receive a carton of nothing but speckled hatching eggs. The reality is they will probably be the most pleased with the guaranteed speckled laying F1 offspring that hatches from blue or speckled brown eggs. You can address this issue by offering a free half dozen F1 eggs along with their purchase. They will have the delight of watching chicks emerge from gorgeous speckled shells and the comfort of knowing there are some guaranteed speckled olive layers also in the incubator coming from the blue shelled eggs. Being generous with free extra eggs is a great way to encourage buyers to return season after season.
Remember to Mix with those Olive Egger Boys!
Olive Egger roos are hidden gems. They can produce a fun egg basket of wacky colors that delight recipients. And the crazier the colors, the more each hatching egg is worth. (As of this writing $60-$85 per dozen is the going rate for heavily speckled olive hatching eggs.) It is well worth it to have a breeding pen of olive eggers whose eggs will help pay for themselves – and probably the rest of your flock – for as long as this fun trend lasts. I hope this article has given you some helpful hints about breeding speckled olive eggers!
Need More Speckled Olive Egger Breeding Help?
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I absolutely love all of this great information you are sharing about olive and speckled eggs. Thank you so much!
Thank you for sharing such a wealth of information! This will definitely be a big help when I decide which breeds I want and how to pick out a rooster.
Do you sale baby chicks
I do not sell chicks or eggs, I’m so sorry. But I get this question a lot! If you click on “Buy Eggs” in my top menu, it takes you to a page where I have links to NPIP breeders who offer the same breeds and olive egger combinations that I have experimented with and you can order eggs or chicks from them!