Dark Olive Egger Backcrossed to Blue Day Old Chick (straight run)

Description

What happens when you take some of your darkest backcrossed olive eggers and put them back under blue? We’re not entirely sure, but you can get in on the ground level of our next project 😉

We’ve taken some of our darkest backcrossed olive eggers (BC3, BC4, BC?) and put them under an Ermine Amerucana male for the opening project of 2025. This will ensure the offspring of our darkest egg layers are reinjected with the genetics to have a rich blue egg shell color, under all that pigment while giving us, theoretically, a chance of ‘paint’ plumage in some of the chicks.

Eggs

We’re aiming for teal grass green, bright but dark. A couple test hatches tell us we’re heading in the right direction, but we’re not sure yet how reliably we can produce the brighter grass greens with teal-ish tones.

Plumage

We have many, many backcrossed olive eggers with different genotypes and phenotypes. Some of these birds will produce paint offspring when paired with our Ermine Ameraucana male, which is a mostly white bird with black flecks. Some will retain their straight comb, some will take on the pea comb.

Genetically, they will carry dominant white and one or two copies of the blue egg shell gene.

Photos to follow in the early Spring!