Olive Egger Chicks

Over the last two days we have hatched eight olive egger chicks. I am thrilled with that because they were shipped eggs, coming all the way across the country via the US Postal system. One was broken in transit so I set 11 eggs. Of those 11 eggs, 8 hatched. The three that didn’t hatch were scrambled in transit. They would never have hatched. Still, a 73 % hatch rate on shipped eggs is excellent. The olive eggers I hatched are a cross of a Wheaton Marans and an Ameraucana. The result, when crossed over several generations, is a chicken that lays olive green eggs. The eggs I bought were very dark green and impossible to candle. I couldn’t see the air cell on three of the eggs so I am sure they were scrambled from the start.

Of the chicks that hatched, five look like a Wheaton Marans and the other three like an Ameraucana. One yellow chick has lightly feathered legs and a darker chick has feathered legs and feet, a trait from the Marans. I moved them into a brooder in the basement today but they got too cold so I put them back into the incubator for the night. We’ll try again tomorrow.

Here’s a little video of the new chicks. Hopefully some of them are girls and we’ll have some gorgeous olive eggs in a few months.

Olive Eggers from Mary O’Brien on Vimeo.