Whiting True Blue Welsummer Cross Olive Eggers

Crossing purebred Whiting True Blues and Welsummers produces gorgeously speckled olive eggs in the first generation if the Welsummers have good speckling genes. Here is our experience with Whiting True Blue Welsummer Cross Speckled Olive Eggers

Whiting True Blue Welsummer cross speckled olive egger eggs chick purebred Whiting True Blue speckled F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10

Whiting True Blue Welsummer Cross Speckled Olive Eggers

No need to spend years breeding for speckled olive eggs. This combination produces very handsome results the first year! (Meaning your hatching egg sales will skyrocket.)

First Generation Guaranteed 100% Olive Laying Hens

This cross produces 100% guaranteed olive eggers with an extremely high chance of speckling if the Welsummer hen has good speckling on her eggs.

Eggs laid by a hen hatched in September 2020 next to eggs from a hen hatched March 2021. Speckling can be highly variable which makes for a very interesting egg basket!

Whiting True Blue Welsummer Cross Olive Eggers — Speckled eggs in your basket using a Whiting True Blue rooster? It’s possible because of his amazing genes!

Unlike some true blue laying breeds, Whiting True Blues do not seem to heavily mute speckling that is inherited from the mother. In olive egger breeding it is known that speckling is most readily inherited from the father so roosters that hatch from heavily speckled eggs are typically sought after. The Whiting is a pleasant surprise, allowing you to keep a rooster that can produce both purebred blue layers and speckled olive eggers in first generation offspring. You get a colorful egg basket while owning as few roosters as possible. (In this case, only one!)

Whiting True Blue Welsummer cross speckled olive egger eggs chick speckled F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10

When I was first crossing my Whiting True Blue roosters with Welsummer hens, I could not find any information online about what the chicks might look like or what color eggs the hens would lay. Would the Welsummer mothers pass on their gorgeous speckled overlay genes? Would the eggs be truly olive or more like easter egger green with brown spots? All I knew was that the offspring of this cross was guaranteed to produce 100% green/olive laying hens.

I used a Whiting True Blue rooster over 2 Welsummer hens to breed adorable speckled olive eggers! The chicks hatched out mostly chipmunk brown and look like fluffy faced Welsummers, which I loved!

Whiting True Blue Welsummer cross chick chicken hen pullet speckled olive egger — This Whiting x Welsummer chick was fathered by our blue Whiting True Blue rooster. She has inherited his bearded face.

We use 4 inch mini zip ties to tag chicks. Here the yellow zip tie, similar in color to my logo, is used to indicate this chick is of our own unique breeding. I use 1/4 inch medium orthodontic bands on just-hatched chicks to identify them. Below, the green leg band means Olive Egger.

These chicks were fathered by our black Whiting True Blue rooster “Mr. Darcy” who carries one black feather gene and one wild type gene. These are all four colors of chicks that he can produce with this cross. Hatched on our homestead May 2022.

Here is a close up of the dark chocolate chick next to the black chick.

A cockerel from the April 2021 chick group shown above all feathered out at 2 months old.

A pullet (above) and cockerel (below) that were among the chipmunk brown chicks pictured above from our April 2021 hatch. It is interesting that so many color variations have come from such generic looking brown chicks.

A mix of Whiting x Welsummer chicks from 2 hatches using the same blue WTB rooster over 2 Welsummer hens. The chicks all hatched in various shades of brown chipmunk. Yellow zip tie leg bands continue to identify them as our cross experiment. (An unrelated Marans grazes in the top right corner.) Our pretty cinnamon frosting chick shows off his striking gray & white plumage.

Here is what the speckled olive eggs from this cross look like:

Whiting True Blue Welsummer cross speckled olive egger eggs chick purebred Whiting True Blue — Speckled olive eggs from a Whiting True Blue x Welsummer cross Olive Egger next to Whiting True Blue eggs laid by a purebred pullet. The Whiting Eggs have not been photoshopped; first eggs truly can be that blue.

Welsummer hens that lay lighter or darker background eggs produce olive egger offspring with interesting variations in color! The Marans Roo x Whiting Hen egg is shown to illustrate how widely the shades can vary depending on each individual being bred.

Speckles Visible in First Generation Offspring

Speckled Olive Eggs are wildly popular but it generally takes a couple generations of breeding to produce reliable speckling. This specific cross produces attractive speckling in the first generation offspring. Second generation offspring can inherit double doses if a speckled egg rooster is used, making this hybrid a phenomenal addition to any Olive Egger breeding project.

When Do They Come Into Lay?

Our very first pullet came into lay at 22 weeks and 1 day old (5 months and 1 day old). She hatched September 19, 2020 and began laying February 20, 2021. This cross tends to come into lay at 22-24 weeks old, slightly faster than other olive eggers.

Here is how the olive tones you get from the WTB roo x Welsummer Hen cross compare to F1 olives from a Blue Copper Marans roo (#5 shade) x WTB hens. Eggs laid August 2021,

This speckled dozen features purebred Welsummer eggs and Whiting x Welsummer speckled eggs in a range of shades. (One blue, green and olive egg are laid by other hens.)

Speckling Variations

Not every single egg laid will have speckles. We’ve noticed speckles can be heavy, light or not present, often on eggs laid just before a skip day. After a skip day, the speckles are back, giving my egg carton even more variation from just one hen!

Here you can see the natural progression of the laying week and the subtle changes in speckling. It is possible for a single hen to lay a faintly speckled or plain olive egg with no speckling. After a skip day the speckles seem to be back in full force.

Selecting Parent Breeding Stock

Ideally you want to select hens who lay a heavily speckled egg or Welsummer roosters who hatched from a heavily speckled egg. If you are unsure about the rooster and there are no hatch mate’s eggs to view, you can test breed him with the expectation of some speckles appearing because speckling seems to be most strongly inherited from the father.

Our Welsummer hens came from Hoover’s Hatchery, which seems to produce heavily speckled layers. Our Whiting True Blue rooster came from Murray McMurray hatchery.

Heavily speckled Welsummer eggs splatter paint eggs speckled olive egger Welly — Eggs from one of the Welsummer hens we used to breed our Whiting x Welsummer Olive Eggers

Our Welsummer hen, Cinnamon, that lays these delightful polka dotted eggs, is the mother of the Olive Egger pullet whose speckled olive eggs are shown with the blue Whiting True Blue eggs above. Using a Welsummer hen with heavy, erratic speckling on a lighter background colored egg produces unique results!

Purebred welsummer eggs heavy speckling erratic unique unusual pattern splatter paint — These two purebred Welsummer hens are the mothers of all the chicks shown above. Cinnamon lays the huge, polka dotted eggs. Our hen, Honker, lays the finely speckled ones. Both hens came from Hoover’s Hatchery.

Welsummer eggs laid in December 2021. All hens came from Hoover’s Hatchery. I prefer their Welsummers because they tend to have very heavy speckling. They are a little slow to mature so I suggest having more than 2.

Hatching Egg Sale Boost

Speckled olive eggs are trending hard right now, with backyard keepers constantly searching for hatching eggs. While buyers may understand that guaranteed olive laying F1 offspring will hatch from a blue or speckled brown egg, they absolutely cannot resist speckled olive hatching eggs and will pay good money to get their hands on them. In 2021 the current going rate for speckled olive hatching eggs is $50 to $80 per dozen. This is because speckled olive egger breeding projects typically take a few years to develop and you are saving your buyer those years of breeding time when you sell your hatching eggs. (When you do the math, it actually is a bargain to save 2-3 years of time and feed, even at $10 per hatching egg.)

I saved the best eggs laid in our Olive Egger pen and took this picture. Our erratic speckled Welsummer, Cinnamon, produces chicks who tend to lay a lighter sage egg with speckling while our normal laying Welsummer, Honker, produces pullets who lay the deeper green speckled olive eggs. The unique Jade Green eggs shown both came from the same Sky Girl Farm pullet (purchased as hatching eggs) and are labeled because they are 100% her breeding work. The two Welsummer eggs shown are from pullets purchased from Hoover’s Hatchery.

Faster Speckling Results

The Whiting x Welsummer cross speeds up the entire speckled olive egger breeding process. If you have room to keep two separate pens, consider breeding the F1 roos and hens together to keep the speckled olives and speckled spearmints going (only 25% chance of speckled brown laying offspring). Back-crossing the hens to a rooster that hatched from a dark brown, heavily speckled egg would deepen the olive tones (50% chance brown laying offspring). And back-crossing to a Whiting True Blue roo would be expected to produce 100% spearmint layers.

A Quick Note About Feed – Opt for Higher % Protein

If you want to sell hatching eggs, consider feeding your chicks a higher percentage protein feed. One of our Whiting x Welsummer crosses was hatched by a first-time broody hen who did not do a very good job of feeding her chicks. Any chick crumbles I offered were greedily eaten by the other adult hens (mom didn’t stop the others from pecking her chicks out of the way) so the chicks consumed mostly 16% layer feed. Sadly, I believed what I read online about not feeding the entire flock chick crumbles. I should not have listened.

The female raised by the broody hen lays permanently stunted eggs that are too small to hatch. I now feed my chicks 24% Chick Starter for the first 2 months and then switch to 22% Grower until laying. If juveniles are in with my adult birds, the entire flock is fed 22% Grower with oyster shell free choice in addition to kitchen scraps and pasture ranging until the juveniles come into lay. Learn from my mistake and ensure your olive eggers will lay big, beautiful hatching eggs!