Olive green eggs – and especially dark moss colored eggs – have become incredibly popular among backyard chicken keepers and for good reason! The range of stunning, earthy tones a hen can lay is fascinating. If you love these rich, avocado green eggs, we will walk beginners through how to breed for olive eggers and get the best colors from your flock:
How to Breed Olive Eggers
Olive eggs are the result of crossing blue egg layers with rare dark brown laying breeds. The recipe is very straightforward and simple: cross a homozygous blue egg breed with a dark brown egg breed. This will produce 100% green laying offspring. (Note that I did not say 100% olive laying offspring. The genes your dark brown egg breed is carrying matter very much and will be the difference between Easter Egger green shades and olive tones.)
Why Should I Use Homozygous Blue Egg Breeds?
Homozygous blue egg breeds are carrying two copies of the blue egg gene. When crossed with dark brown egg breed roosters, you will get 100% olive laying offspring. I use purebred Whiting True Blues from Murray McMurray hatchery to breed most of my olive eggers. My Black Copper Marans rooster came from Clucks & Waddles Homestead in Montgomery, Texas.
Can I Use Blue Laying Easter Eggers?
Yes, you can! But be aware that Easter Eggers are often carrying 1 recessive white egg gene and if you cross her with a dark brown egg rooster, you are likely to get 50% of offspring who lay shades of brown. I used Prairie Bluebell Eggers, which are a type of Easter Egger, to breed olive eggers as an experiment. You can see all the egg pictures from that cross in this article!
Can I Use Any Brown Egg Rooster?
No. Olive Egger breeding requires using a roo from a dark egg breed, such as Black Copper Marans, Blue Copper Marans, Wheaten Marans or Welsummer. Using a rooster from a line who lays “grocery store brown” colored eggs will produce Easter Egger green tones. You can view our page of breeding infographics that will show you what each rooster will produce when crossed with your existing hens. Special Note: Many hatchery Marans come from lighter eggs than what Marans breeders produce. If you want to breed for dark olive eggs, I suggest purchasing a rooster from a good quality Marans line that regularly lays dark eggs.
F1 Olive Eggs Always Seem Disappointingly Light
Even when you are using a Marans from a dark laying line you should expect your F1 eggs to be sage and light olive tones, barely darker than Easter Egger green eggs. Why? The F1 Olive Egger hen has only inherited tint genes from one parent and it simply is not enough. For rich, deep olives, tint genes need to be inherited from both parents, which will not begin to happen until the F2 generation or the Back-Cross 1 generation.
Getting Darker Olives
If you want darker olive eggs, all you have to do is keep breeding! You can opt to cross F1 roosters to their hatchmate F1 sisters but this does not darken the eggs very well. I suggest Back-Crossing F1 hens by breeding them to a Marans rooster again (and it is fine if he is their father) for another generation. This produces a Back-Cross 1 (BC1). Those offspring will lay darker eggs and sometimes will have speckling. From there you can Back-Cross AGAIN to create a Back-Cross 2 (BC2) for deep brownish olives or breed a BC1 rooster to his BC hatchmate sister to create F2.
Can I Buy Olive Eggers from Hatcheries?
Yes you can! Multiple hatcheries have begun offering F1 Olive Eggers like this, this, this, and this. They are not labeled as F1 but if you read the description, it often describes that a blue egg laying breed is being crossed with a dark egg laying breed to produce them and by definition these are F1 birds. As of this writing in 2024, no hatchery is yet producing true F2 Olive Eggers. Cackle Hatchery offers chicks labeled as “F2 Olive Eggers” but if you read the details, they are all Back Cross 1 birds. Cackle Hatchery’s Speckled Olive Hatching Eggs do look promising but since the hatchery does not disclose what rooster is used over them, we don’t know what generation the offspring you hatch from them will be. (Note that you’ll need an incubator if you buy speckled olive hatching eggs. #afflink) It is safest to assume the egg pictures shown by the hatchery are “best of the flock” and not what your pullets will lay.
NEW! Our Hatchery Colored Egg Layer Chick page links you directly to hatcheries offering chicks, organized by egg color! It’s a really handy reference to bookmark & save! (Scroll to middle of page for a list of all the olive egger chicks hatcheries are currently offering, updated regularly.)
Can I Buy Dark Olive Eggs from a Breeder?
Breeders would be thrilled to sell you olive hatching eggs! You’ll want to do some online research and select a good breeder who is producing the olive or speckled olive eggs you want. When you contact her, request to be put on her waiting list for her absolute darkest olive eggs or her most speckled dark olive eggs. She will need to schedule a dedicated collection week for you at a future date so you’re shipped all the darkest, freshest hatching eggs. Keep in mind that egg shell colors lighten the longer the hen lays and they especially lighten in the sizzling heat of summer. The breeder will know which hens are producing the best dark layer offspring so trust her, even if the hatching eggs you receive are not as dark as you hope the offspring hens lay.
Show Me More Egg Pictures!
This page has dozens of additional egg photos and chick pictures! You’ll find even more specific info about what breeds were crossed to create each olive laying hen. Scroll down to see an example of how olive eggs lighten as the season progresses and as temperatures climb.
What Do Olive Egger Chicks Look Like?
Olive Egger chicks can come in a huge assortment of colors! Because they are a hybrid, there is no breed standard. They can be any feather color but thanks to Marans ancestry, you may find that many Olive Eggers have feathered legs but clean legs are also possible, especially from Welsummer ancestry!
I Want to Breed My Own Olive Eggers!
I sell a very detailed, image-heavy Olive Egger breeding guide in my shop that is a FREE DOWNLOAD for newsletter subscribers. It is an invaluable resource on how to breed olive eggs for new breeders with all of my secret recipes and tips for getting the richest olive eggs possible and producing a stunning range of colors in the F3 generation!
NEW! If you are wanting to breed the darkest olive eggs possible, this DARK Olive Egger PDF breeding guide can walk you through how to do it!
Splash Feathered Olive Eggers
Breeding dark olive eggers in the feather colors you want is possible! Splash is one of the most sought-after colors and chicks sell for a premium price. Our PDF breeding guide can walk you through every step:
Where Can I Learn More?
This website is full of additional articles and resources on how to breed colored egg layers, including Olive Eggers! Consider reading these articles next:
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I love your site! Thank you for making all your information available to those of us that are just starting this “colored egg” journey! Found you by your post you did on chick boxes & how to put them together. Beautiful and so helpful for those of us that want to offer a superior product! Thank you again for sharing!!!