What Chickens Lay Green Eggs? Meet the Olive Egger
Edited by Jennifer Bryant · Poultry breeder, Animal Science graduate, and Poultry Nerds Podcast co-host.
Olive Eggers lay green eggs. An Olive Egger isn't a breed. It's a mix made by crossing a chicken from a blue-egg breed with a chicken from a dark brown egg breed.
The result is a basket of eggs in sage, moss, and olive shades that look like they came straight out of a storybook.
Why Are the Eggs Green?
It's a little like mixing paint. A blue-egg hen makes a shell that's blue all the way through. A brown-egg hen paints a coat of brown on the outside of her shell.
An Olive Egger hen gets a bit of both from her parents. She makes a blue shell, then adds a brown coat on top. Blue plus brown equals green!
How Olive Eggers Are Made
Breeders start with a blue-egg breed, like an Ameraucana, Araucana, or Cream Legbar. They cross it with a dark brown egg breed, like a Marans, Welsummer, or Barnevelder.
Here's a fun twist: it doesn't matter which parent is the rooster. A Marans rooster with an Ameraucana hen works, and so does an Ameraucana rooster with a Marans hen. Roosters don't lay eggs, of course, but they still pass egg-color genes to their daughters.
Two things make the biggest difference:
A parent with blue-shell genes. A parent with two copies of the blue-shell gene passes one to every chick. A parent with just one copy passes it to about half. A breed name or “pure” line alone does not guarantee the outcome; daughters also need brown pigment to lay green eggs.
A really dark brown parent. The darker the brown in the family, the deeper the olive tends to be.
Can You Get Even Darker Green?
Some breeders cross an Olive Egger back to a dark brown egg breed to deepen the color. It can work, but there's a catch. If the Olive Egger parent has one copy of the blue-shell gene and the brown-egg parent has none, about half the daughters inherit blue shells and may lay green. The others can lay brown.
What Shade Will You Get?
Every hen has her own shade. Some lay pale sage, some lay deep olive, and some lay eggs that look almost army green. Her shade may also get a little lighter late in the laying season. Opening the nest box feels like a treasure hunt.
What About Easter Eggers?
Easter Eggers can lay green eggs, but not reliably. They're mixed birds, so each one might lay blue, green, cream, or even brown. For a better chance of green eggs, look for an Olive Egger from a breeder who knows the parents’ egg-color genetics. The label alone is not a guarantee.
Tip for Getting Green Eggs
Ask the breeder about egg colors in both parents’ families, and ask to see photos of eggs from their Olive Egger hens.
Looking for Olive Egger hatching eggs or chicks? Browse breeders at Hatching Egg Directory.
