July 2, 2025 • 47 mins
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In this egg-citing episode of the Poultry Nerds Podcast, Carey and Jennifer are joined by Nolie from Mojo Homestead Official to crack open the colorful world of rainbow egg genetics. From breeding true blue egg layers like Ameraucanas to creating Olive Eggers with rich, speckled shells, this episode dives deep into the science, myths, and breeding strategies behind green, pink, mauve, and even “dirty river water” eggs.
Whether you're just starting out or refining a multi-generational olive egger line, you'll learn how pigment layers, homozygous genes, and selective backcrossing play a role in egg color outcomes. Plus, hear real breeder stories, common mistakes to avoid, and how to choose quality stock for your rainbow flock.
Topics Include:
- Homozygous blue egg genes explained
- F1 Olive Eggers vs. later generations
- Speckles, blooms, and egg "toner"
- Tips for managing Morans, Ameraucanas, and Olive Eggers
- Why breeding olive to olive isn’t as predictable as you think
- Real-world lessons from a Florida storm-surviving breeder
Perfect for beginner and advanced poultry breeders looking to master egg color genetics the right way!
Olive Eggers, rainbow egg chickens, egg color genetics, Ameraucana vs Easter Egger, how to breed Olive Eggers, Morans chickens, green egg layers, pink eggs, poultry genetics, backcrossing Olive Eggers, homestead chickens, Mojo Homestead
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennifer (00:02):
Welcome back Poultry Nerds.
I'm Jennifer and I am here with
Carey (00:10):
Carey
Jennifer (00:11):
and Nolie from Mojo Homestead.
Official because the unofficialisn't official anymore, right?
Nolie (00:21):
It's officially been scammed.
Jennifer (00:25):
It's there, but we don't follow it anymore.
Nolie (00:27):
Welcome, Nolie.
How are you?
I'm good.
I'm doing really good.
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer (00:32):
Good.
We've been trying to get you onfor a while and you just no, I
don't think so.
And I said, how about rainbowegg colors?
And you said, yes.
Let's do it.
It was like three days ago.
Nolie (00:45):
It did.
You just had to pick one of myfavorite topics to talk about.
Carey (00:49):
I was gonna say, it is just the topic that's we had to
find the right one that fit.
Jennifer (00:53):
So tell all of our listeners who you are and what
you do, and where you are andall that good stuff.
If they don't know who you are.
Nolie (01:01):
My name is Noli.
I raise and breed chickens.
I also educate about chickenkeeping primarily for beginners,
but also for people of anystage.
I have a Facebook page calledMojo Homestead Official, where I
share all kinds of videos andphotos and stories.
And it's also recently becomelike a hub for breeders in
(01:22):
general to share a lot ofinformation with each other.
Which has been really cool.
And that's it.
I love chickens.
I love rainbow eggs and workingwith chickens for egg colors.
And so here we are.
How did you get started
Jennifer (01:36):
in chickens?
Nolie (01:38):
It started with some it started with some distrust of
the government and led to mewanting to be more
self-sufficient and, 150chickens later, here we are.
Carey (01:51):
Whoa, you actually know a number.
Nolie (01:54):
Look, I know I threw a number out there.
I'm not count.
I haven't counted.
I don't even know the last timeI've actually counted my
chickens.
Carey (02:02):
I was fixing to say, oh man, that was gonna be very
impressive if you actually knewthe number.
Nolie (02:08):
No, but if MBIP asked me, I'd say 150.
It's about 150.
Yeah.
Jennifer (02:14):
I don't know.
That's fair.
I always say more than a hundred.
Yeah.
And just leave it at that.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
It's true.
It's just more than a hundred,so you have Moran?
And your big boy, what's hisname?
You always posting pictures ofhim?
That's Don Juan.
(02:35):
Don Juan.
Nolie (02:37):
Is he a lover?
He is a lover.
He's a good I, the way that hegot his name was at one point he
was fertilizing 17 differenthens at one time.
He can no longer do that.
He's pushing about six yearsnow, so he slowed down on his
vigor when it comes to mating.
But he still has a breeding, hestill in a breeding pen, but he
is down to about three girlsthat he keeps fertilized and I,
(03:00):
that's comfortable for him.
Jennifer (03:02):
So you must be really impressed with his egg color
genetics then.
Nolie (03:06):
Huh?
I when it comes to my, when itcomes to my Morans, I am also
really focused on standards ofperfection.
So he encompasses some prettygood characteristics of what I
wanna breed towards in myMorans, and he has a nice a
color as well.
So a color is not my focus withmy Morans, but it is something
(03:29):
that I'm mindful of because itis part of that standard of
perfection when it comes to.
Yeah, that's where I'm at withhim.
Jennifer (03:38):
Okay.
And then before we delve intoactually the rainbow genetics,
what breed do you use for theblue?
I.
Nolie (03:48):
At this point, I use Americana, but when I started
chasing the Rainbow, I wasbreeding leg bars.
I did leg bars, cream leg bars,cream and creole leg bars for
several years.
But honestly, I don't likeworking with autos, sexing
breeds.
It's too much of a pain whenyou're dealing with chicks,
because you gotta figure outwhat to do with all those males
(04:09):
that nobody wants anything to dowith, and I didn't, I'm not
interested in that.
And I like the presentation ofthe Americanos.
I like the beards and the moths.
I like the PE comb.
And that PE is often associatedwith Blue Egg Genetics, not
always.
But often, so in those latergenerations, if you're back
crossing Olive Eggers, you canuse that p comb as an indication
(04:33):
that maybe there's still bluejeans present without, before
eggs are laid.
Or blue egg, like DNA testing isdone.
Jennifer (04:44):
I have never heard that before.
Yep.
How interesting.
Okay, so with the Americana, howcertain do you have to be that
he's homozygous for blue?
Is that.
Nolie (05:00):
True Americana.
Not, the Americana Easter Eggersthat you see at hatcheries, true
Americana.
It is a breed characteristicthat they are homozygous blue
layers.
So if they are not ho, ho, so ifsomebody listening doesn't know
that homozygous means thatthey're carrying two copies of a
(05:21):
blue egg gene.
So each parent, a bird has twoparents and each parent is gonna
pass down one.
One egg gene, and when bothparents pass down a blue egg
gene, then the offspring iscarrying two copies of that blue
egg gene.
They're homozygous for blueeggs, so real Americana are
always homozygous, they're trueblue layers.
Jennifer (05:44):
Okay.
How can, is there a way to test,to make sure.
Nolie (05:48):
Yeah, there is a company, what are, I think they're
called, like IQ bird testing orsomething, but you can mail off
samples to that company and theycan tell you how many Blue Egg
genes a bird is carrying.
A lot of the Silver Redsbreeders will do this because
the serious silver reds breedersare breeding towards homozygous
blue layers, or, roosters don'tlay eggs, but homozygous blue
(06:11):
egg gene roosters, is it a bloodtest?
I don't know.
I think it's just feathers.
I think it's a feather test.
Jennifer (06:22):
Huh, interesting.
Nolie (06:23):
Yeah.
We'll have to look up after andI'll send you a link if you, if
there's co like notes orsomewhere in the video you can
post it in the notes.
Jennifer (06:30):
Okay, gotcha.
I know that there's anothergroup discussing the fibro test
and we're getting, we're goingdown a rabbit hole.
If you didn't know, we'd dorabbit holes, but testing for
the fibro, they don't seemoverly.
Enthused about it.
Like trustworthy of it?
Yeah.
Nolie (06:48):
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's
Jennifer (06:49):
above my pay grade.
My bro's.
Above my pay grade.
Okay.
So before we get into the actualrainbow genetics, then, so you
have to make sure that you startwith a true Moran, not like a
Mystic Moran or a.
Moran Cross or a Moran, it hasto be true.
Nolie (07:10):
I would say that the true blue layer, the homozygous blue
egg genes are probably moreimportant, but the brown
genetics that you incorporateare going to make a big
difference in the color of theoffspring.
They're going to contribute thedepth, the darkness of the green
egg that you're trying toproduce.
So in my olive programs, Iabsolutely use Morans and
(07:33):
Americana, but you could use,summers, I'm actually working
now on a silver olive eggprogram and I'm using silver
summers and silver Americana todo that.
And the well summers are alittle lighter length, but it's
just gonna have to do with thatsaturation of.
Green and that F1, the firstgeneration olive crossing.
So paired a Americana pairedwith a well summer, those
(07:57):
offspring are probably gonna laya little bit of a lighter green
than paired with a Morans.
Like your Easter Eggers, forexample, are a probably a home.
They have a blue egg gene fromone parent, and the other parent
is probably just a lighter brownor cream colored even.
That's why you have those reallylight greens.
Jennifer (08:17):
Do the speckles from the will summer, do those get
passed down through the olivetube?
Nolie (08:22):
They should.
Yep.
Speckle, I mean like genetics,it is not always 100%.
But in general, both specklesand your heavy blooms tend to be
passed down genetically.
So if one of the parents or themother, we know what the
mother's eggs look like iscarrying the speckled.
Speckled genetics and probablywill carrying it too.
(08:43):
But here's the thing,interesting.
A lot of hens who lay speckledeggs won't necessarily lay
speckled every day.
Sometimes they're just notthere.
It just has to do with thedeposit of color on that egg
before it comes out.
And so if I have a hen who layspeckled eggs.
Even though she lays an egg oneday that doesn't have those
(09:04):
speckles, but I hatch from thategg is still carrying all the
genetic material for speckledoffspring because it's the hen's
genetic material, notnecessarily the presentation of
that particular egg, like thistime in the season.
Pigment is running out.
So if you are raising Morans,you'll notice that they're, the
(09:25):
saturation of brown is a littlelighter.
And it happens with blue eggstoo, though the pigment will
lighten throughout the layingseason, but that's not
indicative of what color eggsthe offspring are gonna have to
potential to lay because theoffspring are gonna receive just
the genetics of that bird, whichis important for people to know
at this point in the season, ifthey're hatch, receiving
(09:45):
hatching eggs or hatching.
Jennifer (09:48):
Okay, so I guess I was wrong.
So you have to start with a trueblue bird.
Yeah.
But you can use any brown bird.
It doesn't really have to be aMoran or summer.
We could use an Orpington if wereally wanted to.
Nolie (10:02):
It's too light.
The color is too light of thategg.
If you were to breed to anorpington, I would consider that
offspring Easter egg.
You wanna go?
There, see, here's the thing,like an olive egg is really a
mutt breed.
There's no standard, for OliveEggers.
But you wanna, I would, if Iwere making, if I were to write
a standard, I would say that youneed to start with a brown
(10:23):
layer, with a big shade of atleast five.
Whatever, whatever breed it isreally doesn't matter, but you
wanna start with as dark of abrown as you can get.
Carey (10:35):
That makes sense.
Nolie (10:36):
If I were teaching somebody, I would say absolutely
start with Morans or yourdarkest Lang.
Summers, but in my own programs,if I had a back crossed olive
and she's laying a dark brown.
I would Absolutely and there'ssomething about her eggs that
she was speckled or heavybloomed.
I would definitely breed herback to a true blue layer to see
(10:58):
what those offspring produced,even if she wasn't morans, so
it's not about the breed, it'sabout the egg shade.
The egg color.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Jennifer (11:08):
So any dark brown plus blue, essentially.
Yeah.
Nolie (11:12):
But officially we would say Morans at America.
But for the sake of theconversation, it doesn't really
have to be.
Jennifer (11:19):
No, that's fine.
That's why we're just having aconversation.
Okay.
So now we've laid thegroundwork.
Is there anything else that weneed to know for the groundwork?
Nolie (11:27):
I think the groundwork simply is that to create an
olive egg and that firstgeneration, we're taking a true
blue bird, a bird that hashomozygous blue egg gene, and
we're breeding to a dark brownlayer, and the first generation
olive egg is the only generationof olive egg that is going to
guarantee green eggs 100% of thetime.
(11:49):
I think that's important toknow.
Jennifer (11:52):
Does it matter which way you go?
Can it be a.
Blue boy over brown girls.
Or does it,
Nolie (11:59):
yeah, it doesn't make any difference, but there is some
talk in the community that theroosters have more opportunity
to like deposit browns.
So there's some talk that therooster has more to do with the
depth of Brown in the offspringand morans and, olives in
general.
(12:20):
Gotcha.
Jennifer (12:20):
Okay.
So if I were to order from youan F1 olive egg, then the eggs
that you shipped me would eitherbe brown or blue, right?
Correct.
Yep.
And I'm sure that shocks a fewpeople, right?
Nolie (12:36):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I do a lot of educationwith people buying olives for
the first time so that they canunderstand what they're looking
at when they receive hatchingeggs, for sure.
I think the other thing thatmight be foundational when it
comes to a color genetics isthat truly there are only two
egg colors there, and if youcrack eggs open brown eggs,
(13:00):
green eggs, if you were to crackthem all open, you would see
that they're either white orthey are blue.
And when it comes to thesegreens and these browns and
pinks and gray, like all thesecolors that we see that is all
pigment, that is deposited ontop of that white or blue
eggshell.
It's actually one of the lastthings that happens before.
(13:20):
And same with the blooms and thespeckles before the eggs come
out, and so all of your oliveEggers are on a blue base.
All of your brown eggs creamedare on a white egg base.
Carey (13:35):
So it just matters what kind of printers they're using
when they go through.
Nolie (13:38):
Yeah.
Yep.
Exactly.
That's, we all joke at thispoint in the season that the
chickens are, they're justrunning out of toner.
Carey (13:46):
Yep.
They need different ink.
Nolie (13:47):
It really is that way though.
Jennifer (13:50):
Okay.
So you've shipped out, we'retalking about the F1 generation
now, so we are, we're puttingeither blue eggs or brown eggs
in the incubator.
And so those girls, that hatchwill be your F1 cross, right?
Okay.
And they will lay olive eggs?
Nolie (14:12):
Yes.
They're going to lay green eggs.
The variance of the color ofolive is gonna have to do with
the genetics, really?
Of the brown Lang brown geneticparent.
Jennifer (14:25):
Okay.
Are those F1 boys good foranything?
Nolie (14:30):
I, and look, this is probably gonna be different
depending on what olive egg orbreeder you talk to.
I think that the firstgeneration olives are the only
useful ones unless you do somegenetic testing.
Because here's what's happening.
We talked about how each chickenhas two genes, one gene from
each parent, and we under, oh.
(14:52):
I lost my train of thought.
Okay.
And in the beginning that withthat first generation, you had
your true blue parent with twoblue egg genes, who's definitely
gonna pass down a blue egg gene.
And then you have your brownlaying, brown bruise.
You have the brown genetics.
That are coming into play.
So that's where that the browncoloring is coming in.
So you have that blue egg withthe brown pigment over it, which
(15:14):
is what's giving you green.
Okay?
But those offspring are onlygonna be carrying one of each of
those genes.
So there's only one blue gene.
And the other is for those browngenetics.
So that chicken only has a 50%potential to pass on more blue
egg genes to the nextgeneration, which is.
You stop, you come here.
(15:34):
She's I'm so sorry.
I can't.
Okay.
So anyways, so that first onegeneration only has a 50% chance
to pass on those blue egg genesto the following generation,
that's when things get a littletricky.
So if you're this, we need apunt square.
We need to draw out a puntsquare to see the rest.
Because what's happening is eachof those parents only have a 50%
(15:58):
chance to pass on a blue egggene, which is, when you're
breeding olive of acres, there'sa good potential for that.
There's a good potential for theoffspring to end up with one of
those genes, at least from oneof the parents.
Carey (16:10):
I was gonna say for that, you're gonna have to wait until.
For the mail birds, that couldbe a fun science project.
Take a long time.
Yep.
More
Nolie (16:23):
coops.
Yep.
Carey (16:24):
That's a good excuse.
For more coops,
Nolie (16:27):
I have olives set up in four or five different pens
because I can just throw in, Ican throw an olive in my, I can
do olives in my morans pens.
I can do olives in the Americanapens.
But I also have, like we'retalking about a later generation
olive apen where I have F1 firstgeneration roosters under
(16:47):
various generations.
Of green laying olive aaba hens,and those offspring do have the
potential to lay brown eggs aswell, but there's a lot of color
potential in there because allof those Olive Aaba parents are
carrying the potential for blueegg jeans, different brown
shades.
There's a lot that can happencolor-wise in those offspring.
(17:10):
I think it's ex, I like thevariation of it, the potential.
I think it's exciting.
Jennifer (17:16):
Okay, so let's leave the boys, the F1 boys alone for
just a minute.
So we have the F1 girls and theyare gonna lay green eggs.
So you can't what would happen,you're gonna have two scenarios,
basically.
One where you breed back toeither blue or brown, right?
Or one where you breed to otherF1 boys, right?
(17:41):
Okay.
So to get the depth of color,those nice, rich olive colors,
are you going back to a Moran?
Nolie (17:49):
Yes, definitely.
You're going back to as dark ofa brown as you can breed to.
Okay,
Carey (17:57):
so you really need like a Moran with a, that produces a
egg color of seven, eight.
If you can find it, the deeper,the better on the brown.
Jennifer (18:08):
Definitely.
So how many generations have,have you done and have other
people done going back and like,how deep can you get that green?
Nolie (18:18):
Man, I don't even know the deepest that mine go right
now.
I have some f.
F what I'm calling F fourcrosses.
But basically those are secondgeneration back cross, hence,
which is, so I would've had myF1 generation, which was back
cross to a Morans, which wasback cross to Morans again.
(18:39):
And now I'm breeding to an afirst generation olba.
So their their offspring would,I'm considering fourth
generation, but you can go as,as, as long as you want.
Really just breeding and theappeal of, okay, both breeding
back to an Americana and back toa Morans are both considered
(18:59):
back crosses.
Which is, which is importanttoo.
'cause I think when most peoplehear back cross, they just
assume back cross to Moransbecause that's, most people are
trying to get those darkergreens.
I have one pen set up.
With some green laying handsback crossed to Americana
because that Americana parent isfor sure gonna be giving blue
(19:20):
egg genes to the offspring.
So it's a good way to make surethat you're reintroducing those
blue egg genetics.
So it's almost like that nextoffspring.
It's not a first generation, butthey're going to have the Blue
Egg genes and some of thoseolive brown genetics as well.
It's a good way to reintroduce,make sure the blue egg genetics
are reintroduced.
(19:41):
And that's how people like yousee people who are labeling
their eggs like Spearmint Eggersand Moss Eggers, and all these
fancy things.
Like they're probably just backcrossed to an Americana, or to
some bird where they canguarantee that they're, maybe
you can't, that there's moreBlue egg genetics being
reintroduced to get thosedifferent kind of shades of
(20:03):
teal, lighter greens andwhatnot.
Jennifer (20:08):
Okay, so let's go sideways for a minute.
Okay.
How do you go from back crossingall the Eggers to the Easter
acre to get those colors?
Or is it totally different?
My
Nolie (20:22):
line between all of Eggers and Easter Eggers.
Okay.
And my theory is that with allof Eggers, the, at first of all,
it has to do with thesaturations of the brown
genetics that you're using.
I personally feel like it alsohas to do with knowing the
lineage.
You know that when you just getinto like Barnard mixes of all
just breed this bird with thisbird and see what colors come
(20:42):
out.
I now you're stepping intoEaster anger territory.
But if you wanted to lightenyour eggs.
From a dark olive, then youwould breed that hand to a
lighter a white, a lake horn orbrass, or some bird from lighter
egg color genetics, cogens, thatwould lighten up the eggs in the
next generation for sure.
(21:03):
But who would even wanna dothat?
Why would you even do that?
Do.
Carey (21:07):
How do you, that was a noli that said that.
So feel free if direct thosecomments there because that
Nolie (21:17):
there's a woman.
There's a woman on my Facebookpage.
Oh my goodness.
Vera, come here, you stop that.
Hugs anyways, there's a woman, Ihave a running joke with a woman
on my Facebook page because shemessaged me.
Most people when they messageabout olive bakers, they want
your darkest eggs.
Can I only have BC two crossesor can I have your speck?
(21:38):
Like they want these reallydark, speckled, heavy bloom
eggs.
And this bone woman went, womanmessaged me and she actually
preferred the like re nightswhen I was like.
I've never heard of, I've neverhad anybody ask me.
So now we have a running joke,in our conversations or posts on
Facebook.
It's really funny.
She's sweet.
Jennifer (21:56):
So you have nicknamed your line, the Dirty River Eggs,
right?
Nolie (22:02):
I didn't do it.
Somebody on Facebook one timewas, I had posted a picture of
some eggs a couple years ago,and in her defense they were
like, like these moav likepinkish looking.
They, the offspring would'vebeen first generation olives.
They were like brown eggs andlike green eggs.
But anyways, she messaged me, Ilisted them on my Facebook page
and she messaged me and she waslike, I don't mean to be rude.
(22:24):
But do people really buy thesebecause they just look like
Dirty River water to me.
Carey (22:32):
I love that.
It's like setting it up.
I don't mean to be rude, but I.
Nolie (22:38):
I was like, not even offended.
It was so funny, that I wasn'teven offended.
It was just clear to me thatshe, didn't have experience with
these A colors and that wasfine.
But I had made a post.
I kept her anonymous, but I madea post about it on Facebook just
'cause it was so funny to me.
And of course, everybody whoread it was hysterical and it
just cut from then on, it waslike, okay, these are dirty
(22:59):
river water eggs and I love it.
Thank you.
So if she's out there and she,if she even remembers, then
thank you for the tagline, itwas the best marketing tool that
I've ever come across.
Wow.
Jennifer (23:13):
Okay.
So how
Nolie (23:14):
do you get those mov and those pink eggs?
It's a, it's an elusive thing.
Really mob and pink is not anegg color.
Like we talked about, you getblue and you get white eggs.
Even the browns over the brownsgreens, that all has to do with
pigment that's deposited overthe egg.
And it's the same with pinks.
(23:35):
Pinks typically come from heavybloomed cream eggs, or morans,
but usually the really heavybloomed morans eggs tend to look
more purple, or like deep rosy,which is pretty, but like I have
some wine dots right now who layreally light pink colored eggs,
but it all has to do with thedeposit of the bloom that's on
(23:56):
there.
Gotcha.
It's the same too, when you seegray looking olive eggs, it's
all, it has to do with the bloomthat's on the egg.
Those eggs look really beautifuland they are really beautiful,
but they're hard to hatch.
That heavy bloom makes that eggless porous and can, they can be
really difficult to hatch.
Jennifer (24:19):
Okay.
Alright, now rabbit hole time.
I'm just forewarning now.
Okay.
So I did Morans.
For one hot, one hot minute.
And I learned really quicklywhile I was trying to buy my
foundational stock that.
(24:39):
People do not keep theirbrooders straight.
So when I bought Moran eggs orchicks in one instance, I got a
lot of olive acres.
Because the guy did not keephis, it was a man did not keep
his brooders straight.
And he could
not tell.
So I saw that a lot in thegroups people sharing that with
(25:04):
me, that pet peeve, did you buychicks or hatching eggs?
Let's see.
Those were chicks.
Nolie (25:12):
Yeah.
Jennifer (25:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how do you keep your straightMorans and your olives?
I
Nolie (25:18):
have learned that I can't house them together, period.
I don't hatch them together.
I don't brood them together.
I don't house them together.
Hang on.
I'm gonna put this dog and this.
She doesn't know how to behave.
Fear.
You lost your chance to be inthis room.
Jennifer (25:34):
I don't house them together
Nolie (25:35):
at all.
Jennifer (25:37):
And then you band them or tag them somehow later?
Nolie (25:40):
Nope.
I just don't ever house themtogether.
Oh.
'cause honestly, like with theback crosses, once you're back
crossing all of bakers tumor,they can look very similar, and
the only way to tell them apartwould be genetic testing.
And I would hate that toaccidentally put an Oli Baker
Rooster over Morans and then notfind out for another year and be
selling all those hatchings.
(26:01):
That would be terrible.
I have sold somebody olive ofacres as Morans.
I have done that before
Carey (26:07):
and it, and that is a really good excuse to have a lot
of brooders.
Nolie (26:12):
Yeah.
But this woman, she reallywanted Morans, and I, she didn't
know that she had olive acresuntil seventh months later she
sent me some pictures and waslike, Hey, can you gimme some
feedback on these Morans?
And I was like.
Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
That is clearly an olive bakerrooster.
Fortunately, she's local andvery kind, and we worked it out
over the next two years, butI've done it too.
(26:34):
It happens what I'm sharing.
But that's why now I just don'teven house'em together,
Jennifer (26:41):
so it doesn't, it is not even a possibility.
Nolie (26:43):
I think in her situation I might have mixed up eggs is
what happened.
It may not have even been thehousing.
It may have just been myclerical error.
I.
Jennifer (26:51):
You know what?
That's how I got my firstcoaching.
I brought my eggs.
Yep.
And then this buddy popped outand I was like, what is that?
Because that is not whitetrauma.
Nolie (27:00):
Did you get more, I noticed you said my first
coaching.
Jennifer (27:03):
Oh yeah.
I ended up like going the wholeway with coaching, so that's a
whole nother story.
Yeah.
Got rid of all the bras and wentto coaching.
So how would somebody choose areputable breeder then, who has
both Morans and all the VAs?
(27:24):
Would you have any advice forthem?
Nolie (27:25):
I would say first of all, that, everybody makes mistakes.
Things happen, and genetics isnot an exact science, but I
don't know.
I feel like by looking throughsomebody's.
Facebook page and their postsand the types of things that
they're sharing and their,website.
I, I don't know.
I think that there's a way todiscern who's serious, and who's
(27:46):
just throwing birds together.
You can look and I would saylook at the egg colors, and look
at multiple different, whatthey're showing you.
Jennifer (27:55):
Yes.
And realize that you can't justlook at a chick and tell what
color egg it's gonna.
But
Nolie (28:02):
absolutely not.
And when it comes to oliveEggers and egg color genetics,
you, this is another huge thing,is you can't even look at the
egg color of the egg.
You're hatching, and predict.
What the offspring is.
As a breeder I can say I'm gonnatake this really beautiful,
heavy bloom, speckle, olive egg,and I'm gonna breed the hen who
lays it back to a morans.
(28:22):
And my hope is that theoffspring lays a darker, deeper
green with the heavy blooms andspeckles.
But I.
It's not an exact science.
I mean there is something like13 different genes involved with
brown pigmentation.
There is a lot happening there.
So as olive ager breeders, weare just pairing up the best
matches that we can, with thecolors and genetics that we know
(28:45):
of and hoping that.
Nature does the best, fromthere.
But in those back crosses toMorans there, it's really
important that people know thatthose offspring could also lay
brown eggs.
But I've had some back crosseswho laid brown instead of green
and laid like really cool bloomsand I ended up using those Hess
somewhere, with true blue layersor somewhere else in a program.
Jennifer (29:10):
So there is a possibility that an olive egger
would lay a brown egg,
Nolie (29:15):
a later generation olive egger or back crossed olive egg.
Yes.
It needs to be an expectationthat it could happen at least
50% of the time, like probproba, probability wise.
It may or may not, butprobability wise, there is a 50%
chance.
Carey (29:33):
I think that should be like a risk that somebody
understands going into it.
Nolie (29:39):
Agree.
Carey (29:40):
Especially when you're dealing with shipped eggs.
You're gonna have hatchabilityissues like what you talked
about earlier, and they're oliveacres.
Yeah.
You past F1, you don't know what you're gonna get.
Nolie (29:57):
That is true.
It's all
Jennifer (29:58):
predictions.
Carey (30:00):
It's the chicken box of chocolates.
Jennifer (30:01):
Yes.
It is not a breed.
It is essentially just a babarnyard mix.
It's a mu Yep.
A very specific barnyard mix.
Correct.
For a purpose okay.
All right.
I think that I better understandgenetics.
Carey (30:21):
It's a really cool science experiment.
Nolie (30:23):
It's really fun.
I love Olive Bakers.
Olive Bakers are one of myfavorite passion projects, and
like I said, I have multiple didifferent pens set up with my, I
have a, the olives to olives,the olives back cross to Morans
olives, back cross toAmericana's.
I am particularly excited aboutsome projects that I'm working
on for next year.
(30:43):
One of the things that.
I like least about olive egg isthat there's no kind of standard
for them.
You know what I mean?
They all look different, bedepending on the different
breeding pairs that we're doing.
And so I'm really excited thatI'm working on the silver olive
Eggers, and I'm working on wheatand olive egg too, to create a.
There are other people doingthis already.
I think Holly Oaks up in Maineis already doing the wheat and
(31:07):
olive bakers, for example.
But I'm excited to be workingwith that.
A variety, of olive bakers, justas opposed to, we'll see what
pops up, which I like.
It's, it's, I like the variety,but I'm excited to have the
standard Silver and Wheatenpresentation form.
Jennifer (31:24):
Okay.
One thing I forgot to ask you,so for somebody who's just
starting out with these rainbowegg genetics you can you, what
expectation would you havebreeding olive to olive?
Just of any color.
Nolie (31:40):
Let me say that I, if anybody watching follows me on
Facebook, I have a pinned postto the top of my, and on
Facebook, I'm Mojo Homestead FLOfficial, and there is a pinned
post at the top of my page thathas some reference charts like
using actual eggs that mightlike saying, I bred this hand to
a rooster from this, with theegg colors and then a couple
(32:02):
eggs showing some potential.
That the offspring could lay aswell.
But breeding F1 to F1, I wouldexpect any variation of greens,
darker greens, browns, maybesome kind of like spear colors
in there.
Just some variation of color.
I wouldn't necessarily expectdarker greens, but I don't, they
(32:23):
could surprise you, I don'tknow.
Jennifer (32:25):
But if you started getting down to F two, F three,
F four, and just trying to breedthose together.
Nolie (32:30):
You're gonna get
Jennifer (32:31):
more brown eggs, just normal brown eggs.
Nolie (32:34):
Yeah, it would depend on what you know about the rooster.
Obviously you would always wannastart with a green laying hen
and if you, I.
Once you start to get into thoseF two and F three roosters,
without some kind of eitherbreeding and testing or genetic
testing, you can't know for sureif that rooster is carrying blue
(32:56):
egg genes, so it's hard to knowif he has the potential to pass
that down.
Jennifer (33:02):
Gotcha.
Nolie (33:03):
Which would just mean that there's more probability
for brown eggs than if you werecarrying at least one copy of a
Blue egg gene.
Jennifer (33:12):
So reasonable expectation if somebody said,
Hey, I just threw my olive eggin a pen together, you could
literally get anything fromlight brown to olive.
Nolie (33:24):
When you put it that way.
Yes.
Yes.
Like when I, I offer my dirtyriver water.
Eggs are multi-generationaldozens.
So when I sell people all of eggor dozens, I'm selling them or
I'm shipping them 14 eggs thatare gonna contain the, as much
potential as possible for likecool and green eggs, they're
gonna be eggs from each of myolive pens.
(33:47):
Including first generation,including bread bact to
Americana to give them hopefullythe best start they can with
like a.
Cool colored green, teal egg,heavy bloom, speckled basket,
and that's if people are seriousabout wanting olive eggs and
darker eggs.
My suggestion with, and I don'tmean to be rude, we were talking
(34:08):
about earlier, is do ityourself, and again, I really
don't mean that to be rude, Imean that, because that way you
will know what you're workingwith and you will know the
genetics, so you have a betteridea of.
The potential and what'shappening in those lines?
Jennifer (34:24):
My, my thought behind my question was more like
somebody, a post you might seeon Facebook that says, oh, I
bought these olive acres fiveyears ago, and they've been in a
pen all by themselves for fiveyears.
Then, you realistically, you'regonna get pretty much any color,
Nolie (34:44):
so long as the hens are laying green, they are carrying
at least one blue white gene.
So there's always gonna be atleast 50% chance of some
variation of some shade ofgreen.
At the very least.
Jennifer (35:00):
Okay, I understand now.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Can, where can people order eggsfrom you?
Do you have a website oranything?
I.
Nolie (35:09):
I do have a website it's mojo homestead fl.com, but I use
my website primarily to showcasemy birth.
There's where you can find allmy pictures and pricing and
information on shipped eggs andwhatever else I get going on
over there.
But I handle all of my ordersdirectly through Facebook and
Facebook Messenger.
I like to talk to peopledirectly and I like to have a
(35:31):
space where I can communicatewith them easily about shipping
or.
Anything that comes up.
So if you wanted to order eggsdirectly from me, then the thing
to do would be to find me onFacebook and shoot me a message.
But this summer, I'm, I am onewoman and a pretty small breed.
So availability is touch and go,and especially coming into
(35:54):
summer olives are, I usually cancome up with availability pretty
quickly just because I work theminto so many different places.
I have a good number of them,but availability is touch and go
throughout the summer, for sure.
Spring is the time I'd saypeople are really serious about
hashing eggs.
Starts in January, which iscrazy because you'd think it'd
be a couple months later, butit's not.
(36:14):
It's January.
Jennifer (36:16):
Yeah.
If you're serious about Nain,and this goes for pretty much
any species of poultry, youorders start in November on its,
and if you're waiting untilApril, you're really, might be
outta luck almost.
Yeah.
I
Carey (36:35):
would be surprised if you wait till April and you're not
outta luck.
Nolie (36:39):
It doesn't depend.
Like I, this year chose not, I'mnot doing a, I didn't do a wait
list this year.
I didn't do any wait list.
I didn't do any contact listsbecause I can't handle the
stress of it.
I can't handle the stress ofkeeping people waiting and
people checking back in and whatare my eggs.
And so this year I said, I'mjust gonna try to do it all on a
first come first serve.
Basis.
And what's happened is I'd listone dozen, say I have a dozen
(37:02):
olive of eggs available, andthey'll be gone quickly, but
then two or three more peoplewill come behind them and I'll
take payments out so far as twoto three weeks.
That seems to be a good timeperiod to predict what the flock
is doing, and serve thoseorders.
And then, so I can.
Keep up with that, witheverything without getting
overwhelmed by the orders andwithout people waiting so long,
(37:24):
that they become restless.
Like I've seen ha I see ithappen a lot, I've had it happen
a lot and I, this year I waslike, I need to protect my peace
somehow.
Jennifer (37:36):
What else do you have going on at your little farm
down there?
You're in Florida in case peopledidn't pick up.
Yeah.
Part?
Nolie (37:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh man.
It's been a tough year.
Honestly.
I've had a lot of losses topredators this year.
I've had some kind of newpredator in my chicken yard,
which I still haven'tidentified.
My solution has been just to.
Fortify the coops where I'mputting the smaller birds, which
is what had, was being taken.
So that's, remedied for now.
(38:07):
And then I had a really seriousbout with Cox City this year,
which was terrible.
So I'm really, it's been a toughyear over here with grow outs
and predators and coccidia inparticular.
And hurricanes.
Oh my God.
Don't even, thanks for remindingme.
Jennifer (38:27):
So a
Nolie (38:27):
breeder
Jennifer (38:28):
world kind of starts after the molt in the fall.
Like we start pulling our birdsand mentally start putting them
together.
And then we may even startmaking, pairings what, in
November, December?
Sometimes.
Yeah.
Depending on your weather.
Yeah.
So you're, you were trying tomentally prepare for this year
when hurricanes decided to gothrough.
(38:50):
Absolutely.
Nolie (38:51):
Yeah.
Last year was very tough withthe hurricanes and hurricane
season starts, actually, it'sJune 1st through like October,
and it is hot.
Who knows.
We'll hope for the
Jennifer (39:03):
best this year.
Yeah, I think they extended it,didn't they?
Did they?
They were talking aboutextending hurricane season.
All the good news.
Carey (39:13):
This is the south.
Okay.
So if you don't like theweather, just wait about half
hour.
It'll change.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they can say it's gonna doone thing tomorrow, but it's
probably not.
It's gonna do something else.
Nolie (39:26):
Yeah.
I think for us, where I'mlocated, I'm in like the armpit
of Florida.
I think that there was somethingabout, has been something about
the jet stream over the lastcouple years and it was just
like funneling all the storms upthrough and we saw these
historic storms last year thatwere like, this area's never
seen any.
There was, it wasn't like therewas just one or two we're
(39:47):
talking like there was threemajor storms in the span of a
year that it was wild.
Carey (39:53):
That's crazy.
Jennifer (39:54):
What other breeds are you working with that we didn't
mention?
Nolie (39:58):
My bread and butter are morans and wine dots.
Blue laced red wine dots blackla blue laced, red wine dots,
and black copper Morans.
Those are the breeds that I havebeen working with the longest
and that I am the most focusedon when it comes to standards of
perfection.
Not that I don't know that I'llever actually be there, but the,
(40:20):
I try to stay focused.
But I also work with Americana.
I work with Silver, Americana,Isabelle, Americana, wheat and
and Wheat and Americana andIsabelle Wheat and splits.
I also have lavender Americana,but I.
I am considering that I may notcontinue with them moving
forward.
I'm not.
We'll see, once fall comes whatI wanna do.
(40:43):
And then of course there's theOlive Eggers and I also do
summers, silver, summers inparticular, and Silkies.
But I have a silky fun pen.
You like silky?
So is that what the fa You lovesilky, huh?
Jennifer (40:59):
No.
Off the air.
We are
Nolie (41:01):
yeah, we, yeah, we make, they're
Carey (41:03):
her favorite.
Nolie (41:04):
It's fine.
I, listen, I said I would never,ever have silkies and then I
accidentally got some silkiesand then I said I would never,
ever have showgirls, and nowthey're my favorite.
Carey (41:16):
So like for me it's being at a show and seeing the silky
people some of the things thatsome of them do is a lot,
Jennifer (41:27):
yeah.
So I went to a show, I don'tknow, probably close to a month
ago now, and we were millingaround talking, waiting for them
to count points and do awardsand stuff, and, this, I was
talking to this lady and she washolding a silky, and it was
white, and she just sat down onthe curb and put the silky down
on the ground.
(41:47):
And I just looked at her and Iwas like, will it just stay
there?
And she goes, oh, it won't moveat all.
Like it's there it will staythere all day.
And I was thinking my chickens,my giant chickens run across the
field like puppies for sure.
Nolie (42:03):
Yeah.
They're more prone to parasitesin my opinion, because they're
less prone to pre, they havemore vitamin deficiency issues
and other breeds.
And honestly, my silkies are anabomination to the silky world.
Like it's a fun pen, withdifferent colors, feather types.
(42:23):
Satins, which apparently aretheir own breed.
Satins are no longer silkies, ormaybe they never were silkies.
I don't know.
It's a whole thing.
Depending on who you talk to,you feel really strongly about
it.
But, so I have satin butanyways, it's fun and here's the
thing about breeding chickens.
I don't ever have any plans toshow chickens.
I guess maybe like I didn't everhave any plans to be on this
(42:44):
podcast, but I don't have anyplans to do that at this point.
I breed for like with the Moransand the wine dots and.
The Americana, I'm mindful ofthe standards because I want to
be mindful of what I'm puttingout in the community, but in
general, most people don't care.
Like in general, most peopledon't care about the standards
(43:04):
of perfection unless they'reshowing, they just want.
Nice, pretty healthy chickens,or in my case, chickens that lay
certain colored eggs, so withthe people who buy silkies from
me they're buying pets for theirkids and their house chicken, or
whatever, they're cute littlesilky showgirl chickens.
I will say that my silkies aremy most reliable hatching eggs.
(43:27):
They're always fertilized.
They do great shifts.
So they're just a staple overhere.
Jennifer (43:34):
One of my biggest sellers, and I haven't done it
in a few years, but I took aCoachin mail and put over a Buff
Orpington.
And the offspring were, theywere black, they orpingtons with
feathers down to their.
Toes.
But
not heavily like a coachin.
(43:56):
But then the feathers, theypicked up a gold fleck, almost
like a Colombian.
Really?
Yes.
And they were super, super coollooking, and I couldn't hatch
enough of those things.
Nolie (44:10):
Did they breed True?
Did you?
To each other?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennifer (44:13):
No, they looked terrible.
The second generation wasterrible.
Yeah.
But the first generation wasfreaking awesome and they picked
up all the best qualities, thebroodiness of the Coachin.
The great Mama of the Orpington.
Just the friendliness.
And they were great.
Yeah.
Carey (44:31):
People love that stuff.
Jennifer (44:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's.
I called them black goldbecause, they were gold and
black and yeah.
Yeah.
That's neat.
But yeah, they were just, but Ijust didn't do it again.
I did it two years and I justdidn't do it again, we run out
of Penn space.
You, you do this and you runoutta pen space.
I
Nolie (44:48):
understand.
Hence, my, my, maybe make adecision about the lavender,
Americana.
I'm not sure yet.
Yeah, I understand.
Carey (44:56):
Probably depends on what the grow out pin looks like come
November.
Nolie (45:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Depends on how coccidia servesme for the rest of the summer.
Jennifer (45:08):
We appreciate you coming on and so maybe you come
back one day, maybe take a good
Nolie (45:15):
topic and we'll see.
Jennifer (45:17):
Come on.
Okay.
We'll find some wrap.
I'll invite you on, I'll teaseyou and then we'll do rabbit
holes.
Okay?
Yes, I like those.
Alright, talk to you later.
Alright, bye.
Welcome back Poultry Nerds.
I'm Jennifer and I am here with
Carey (00:10):
Carey
Jennifer (00:11):
and Nolie from Mojo Homestead.
Official because the unofficialisn't official anymore, right?
Nolie (00:21):
It's officially been scammed.
Jennifer (00:25):
It's there, but we don't follow it anymore.
Nolie (00:27):
Welcome, Nolie.
How are you?
I'm good.
I'm doing really good.
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer (00:32):
Good.
We've been trying to get you onfor a while and you just no, I
don't think so.
And I said, how about rainbowegg colors?
And you said, yes.
Let's do it.
It was like three days ago.
Nolie (00:45):
It did.
You just had to pick one of myfavorite topics to talk about.
Carey (00:49):
I was gonna say, it is just the topic that's we had to
find the right one that fit.
Jennifer (00:53):
So tell all of our listeners who you are and what
you do, and where you are andall that good stuff.
If they don't know who you are.
Nolie (01:01):
My name is Noli.
I raise and breed chickens.
I also educate about chickenkeeping primarily for beginners,
but also for people of anystage.
I have a Facebook page calledMojo Homestead Official, where I
share all kinds of videos andphotos and stories.
And it's also recently becomelike a hub for breeders in
(01:22):
general to share a lot ofinformation with each other.
Which has been really cool.
And that's it.
I love chickens.
I love rainbow eggs and workingwith chickens for egg colors.
And so here we are.
How did you get started
Jennifer (01:36):
in chickens?
Nolie (01:38):
It started with some it started with some distrust of
the government and led to mewanting to be more
self-sufficient and, 150chickens later, here we are.
Carey (01:51):
Whoa, you actually know a number.
Nolie (01:54):
Look, I know I threw a number out there.
I'm not count.
I haven't counted.
I don't even know the last timeI've actually counted my
chickens.
Carey (02:02):
I was fixing to say, oh man, that was gonna be very
impressive if you actually knewthe number.
Nolie (02:08):
No, but if MBIP asked me, I'd say 150.
It's about 150.
Yeah.
Jennifer (02:14):
I don't know.
That's fair.
I always say more than a hundred.
Yeah.
And just leave it at that.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
It's true.
It's just more than a hundred,so you have Moran?
And your big boy, what's hisname?
You always posting pictures ofhim?
That's Don Juan.
(02:35):
Don Juan.
Nolie (02:37):
Is he a lover?
He is a lover.
He's a good I, the way that hegot his name was at one point he
was fertilizing 17 differenthens at one time.
He can no longer do that.
He's pushing about six yearsnow, so he slowed down on his
vigor when it comes to mating.
But he still has a breeding, hestill in a breeding pen, but he
is down to about three girlsthat he keeps fertilized and I,
(03:00):
that's comfortable for him.
Jennifer (03:02):
So you must be really impressed with his egg color
genetics then.
Nolie (03:06):
Huh?
I when it comes to my, when itcomes to my Morans, I am also
really focused on standards ofperfection.
So he encompasses some prettygood characteristics of what I
wanna breed towards in myMorans, and he has a nice a
color as well.
So a color is not my focus withmy Morans, but it is something
(03:29):
that I'm mindful of because itis part of that standard of
perfection when it comes to.
Yeah, that's where I'm at withhim.
Jennifer (03:38):
Okay.
And then before we delve intoactually the rainbow genetics,
what breed do you use for theblue?
I.
Nolie (03:48):
At this point, I use Americana, but when I started
chasing the Rainbow, I wasbreeding leg bars.
I did leg bars, cream leg bars,cream and creole leg bars for
several years.
But honestly, I don't likeworking with autos, sexing
breeds.
It's too much of a pain whenyou're dealing with chicks,
because you gotta figure outwhat to do with all those males
(04:09):
that nobody wants anything to dowith, and I didn't, I'm not
interested in that.
And I like the presentation ofthe Americanos.
I like the beards and the moths.
I like the PE comb.
And that PE is often associatedwith Blue Egg Genetics, not
always.
But often, so in those latergenerations, if you're back
crossing Olive Eggers, you canuse that p comb as an indication
(04:33):
that maybe there's still bluejeans present without, before
eggs are laid.
Or blue egg, like DNA testing isdone.
Jennifer (04:44):
I have never heard that before.
Yep.
How interesting.
Okay, so with the Americana, howcertain do you have to be that
he's homozygous for blue?
Is that.
Nolie (05:00):
True Americana.
Not, the Americana Easter Eggersthat you see at hatcheries, true
Americana.
It is a breed characteristicthat they are homozygous blue
layers.
So if they are not ho, ho, so ifsomebody listening doesn't know
that homozygous means thatthey're carrying two copies of a
(05:21):
blue egg gene.
So each parent, a bird has twoparents and each parent is gonna
pass down one.
One egg gene, and when bothparents pass down a blue egg
gene, then the offspring iscarrying two copies of that blue
egg gene.
They're homozygous for blueeggs, so real Americana are
always homozygous, they're trueblue layers.
Jennifer (05:44):
Okay.
How can, is there a way to test,to make sure.
Nolie (05:48):
Yeah, there is a company, what are, I think they're
called, like IQ bird testing orsomething, but you can mail off
samples to that company and theycan tell you how many Blue Egg
genes a bird is carrying.
A lot of the Silver Redsbreeders will do this because
the serious silver reds breedersare breeding towards homozygous
blue layers, or, roosters don'tlay eggs, but homozygous blue
(06:11):
egg gene roosters, is it a bloodtest?
I don't know.
I think it's just feathers.
I think it's a feather test.
Jennifer (06:22):
Huh, interesting.
Nolie (06:23):
Yeah.
We'll have to look up after andI'll send you a link if you, if
there's co like notes orsomewhere in the video you can
post it in the notes.
Jennifer (06:30):
Okay, gotcha.
I know that there's anothergroup discussing the fibro test
and we're getting, we're goingdown a rabbit hole.
If you didn't know, we'd dorabbit holes, but testing for
the fibro, they don't seemoverly.
Enthused about it.
Like trustworthy of it?
Yeah.
Nolie (06:48):
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's
Jennifer (06:49):
above my pay grade.
My bro's.
Above my pay grade.
Okay.
So before we get into the actualrainbow genetics, then, so you
have to make sure that you startwith a true Moran, not like a
Mystic Moran or a.
Moran Cross or a Moran, it hasto be true.
Nolie (07:10):
I would say that the true blue layer, the homozygous blue
egg genes are probably moreimportant, but the brown
genetics that you incorporateare going to make a big
difference in the color of theoffspring.
They're going to contribute thedepth, the darkness of the green
egg that you're trying toproduce.
So in my olive programs, Iabsolutely use Morans and
(07:33):
Americana, but you could use,summers, I'm actually working
now on a silver olive eggprogram and I'm using silver
summers and silver Americana todo that.
And the well summers are alittle lighter length, but it's
just gonna have to do with thatsaturation of.
Green and that F1, the firstgeneration olive crossing.
So paired a Americana pairedwith a well summer, those
(07:57):
offspring are probably gonna laya little bit of a lighter green
than paired with a Morans.
Like your Easter Eggers, forexample, are a probably a home.
They have a blue egg gene fromone parent, and the other parent
is probably just a lighter brownor cream colored even.
That's why you have those reallylight greens.
Jennifer (08:17):
Do the speckles from the will summer, do those get
passed down through the olivetube?
Nolie (08:22):
They should.
Yep.
Speckle, I mean like genetics,it is not always 100%.
But in general, both specklesand your heavy blooms tend to be
passed down genetically.
So if one of the parents or themother, we know what the
mother's eggs look like iscarrying the speckled.
Speckled genetics and probablywill carrying it too.
(08:43):
But here's the thing,interesting.
A lot of hens who lay speckledeggs won't necessarily lay
speckled every day.
Sometimes they're just notthere.
It just has to do with thedeposit of color on that egg
before it comes out.
And so if I have a hen who layspeckled eggs.
Even though she lays an egg oneday that doesn't have those
(09:04):
speckles, but I hatch from thategg is still carrying all the
genetic material for speckledoffspring because it's the hen's
genetic material, notnecessarily the presentation of
that particular egg, like thistime in the season.
Pigment is running out.
So if you are raising Morans,you'll notice that they're, the
(09:25):
saturation of brown is a littlelighter.
And it happens with blue eggstoo, though the pigment will
lighten throughout the layingseason, but that's not
indicative of what color eggsthe offspring are gonna have to
potential to lay because theoffspring are gonna receive just
the genetics of that bird, whichis important for people to know
at this point in the season, ifthey're hatch, receiving
(09:45):
hatching eggs or hatching.
Jennifer (09:48):
Okay, so I guess I was wrong.
So you have to start with a trueblue bird.
Yeah.
But you can use any brown bird.
It doesn't really have to be aMoran or summer.
We could use an Orpington if wereally wanted to.
Nolie (10:02):
It's too light.
The color is too light of thategg.
If you were to breed to anorpington, I would consider that
offspring Easter egg.
You wanna go?
There, see, here's the thing,like an olive egg is really a
mutt breed.
There's no standard, for OliveEggers.
But you wanna, I would, if Iwere making, if I were to write
a standard, I would say that youneed to start with a brown
(10:23):
layer, with a big shade of atleast five.
Whatever, whatever breed it isreally doesn't matter, but you
wanna start with as dark of abrown as you can get.
Carey (10:35):
That makes sense.
Nolie (10:36):
If I were teaching somebody, I would say absolutely
start with Morans or yourdarkest Lang.
Summers, but in my own programs,if I had a back crossed olive
and she's laying a dark brown.
I would Absolutely and there'ssomething about her eggs that
she was speckled or heavybloomed.
I would definitely breed herback to a true blue layer to see
(10:58):
what those offspring produced,even if she wasn't morans, so
it's not about the breed, it'sabout the egg shade.
The egg color.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Jennifer (11:08):
So any dark brown plus blue, essentially.
Yeah.
Nolie (11:12):
But officially we would say Morans at America.
But for the sake of theconversation, it doesn't really
have to be.
Jennifer (11:19):
No, that's fine.
That's why we're just having aconversation.
Okay.
So now we've laid thegroundwork.
Is there anything else that weneed to know for the groundwork?
Nolie (11:27):
I think the groundwork simply is that to create an
olive egg and that firstgeneration, we're taking a true
blue bird, a bird that hashomozygous blue egg gene, and
we're breeding to a dark brownlayer, and the first generation
olive egg is the only generationof olive egg that is going to
guarantee green eggs 100% of thetime.
(11:49):
I think that's important toknow.
Jennifer (11:52):
Does it matter which way you go?
Can it be a.
Blue boy over brown girls.
Or does it,
Nolie (11:59):
yeah, it doesn't make any difference, but there is some
talk in the community that theroosters have more opportunity
to like deposit browns.
So there's some talk that therooster has more to do with the
depth of Brown in the offspringand morans and, olives in
general.
(12:20):
Gotcha.
Jennifer (12:20):
Okay.
So if I were to order from youan F1 olive egg, then the eggs
that you shipped me would eitherbe brown or blue, right?
Correct.
Yep.
And I'm sure that shocks a fewpeople, right?
Nolie (12:36):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I do a lot of educationwith people buying olives for
the first time so that they canunderstand what they're looking
at when they receive hatchingeggs, for sure.
I think the other thing thatmight be foundational when it
comes to a color genetics isthat truly there are only two
egg colors there, and if youcrack eggs open brown eggs,
(13:00):
green eggs, if you were to crackthem all open, you would see
that they're either white orthey are blue.
And when it comes to thesegreens and these browns and
pinks and gray, like all thesecolors that we see that is all
pigment, that is deposited ontop of that white or blue
eggshell.
It's actually one of the lastthings that happens before.
(13:20):
And same with the blooms and thespeckles before the eggs come
out, and so all of your oliveEggers are on a blue base.
All of your brown eggs creamedare on a white egg base.
Carey (13:35):
So it just matters what kind of printers they're using
when they go through.
Nolie (13:38):
Yeah.
Yep.
Exactly.
That's, we all joke at thispoint in the season that the
chickens are, they're justrunning out of toner.
Carey (13:46):
Yep.
They need different ink.
Nolie (13:47):
It really is that way though.
Jennifer (13:50):
Okay.
So you've shipped out, we'retalking about the F1 generation
now, so we are, we're puttingeither blue eggs or brown eggs
in the incubator.
And so those girls, that hatchwill be your F1 cross, right?
Okay.
And they will lay olive eggs?
Nolie (14:12):
Yes.
They're going to lay green eggs.
The variance of the color ofolive is gonna have to do with
the genetics, really?
Of the brown Lang brown geneticparent.
Jennifer (14:25):
Okay.
Are those F1 boys good foranything?
Nolie (14:30):
I, and look, this is probably gonna be different
depending on what olive egg orbreeder you talk to.
I think that the firstgeneration olives are the only
useful ones unless you do somegenetic testing.
Because here's what's happening.
We talked about how each chickenhas two genes, one gene from
each parent, and we under, oh.
(14:52):
I lost my train of thought.
Okay.
And in the beginning that withthat first generation, you had
your true blue parent with twoblue egg genes, who's definitely
gonna pass down a blue egg gene.
And then you have your brownlaying, brown bruise.
You have the brown genetics.
That are coming into play.
So that's where that the browncoloring is coming in.
So you have that blue egg withthe brown pigment over it, which
(15:14):
is what's giving you green.
Okay?
But those offspring are onlygonna be carrying one of each of
those genes.
So there's only one blue gene.
And the other is for those browngenetics.
So that chicken only has a 50%potential to pass on more blue
egg genes to the nextgeneration, which is.
You stop, you come here.
(15:34):
She's I'm so sorry.
I can't.
Okay.
So anyways, so that first onegeneration only has a 50% chance
to pass on those blue egg genesto the following generation,
that's when things get a littletricky.
So if you're this, we need apunt square.
We need to draw out a puntsquare to see the rest.
Because what's happening is eachof those parents only have a 50%
(15:58):
chance to pass on a blue egggene, which is, when you're
breeding olive of acres, there'sa good potential for that.
There's a good potential for theoffspring to end up with one of
those genes, at least from oneof the parents.
Carey (16:10):
I was gonna say for that, you're gonna have to wait until.
For the mail birds, that couldbe a fun science project.
Take a long time.
Yep.
More
Nolie (16:23):
coops.
Yep.
Carey (16:24):
That's a good excuse.
For more coops,
Nolie (16:27):
I have olives set up in four or five different pens
because I can just throw in, Ican throw an olive in my, I can
do olives in my morans pens.
I can do olives in the Americanapens.
But I also have, like we'retalking about a later generation
olive apen where I have F1 firstgeneration roosters under
(16:47):
various generations.
Of green laying olive aaba hens,and those offspring do have the
potential to lay brown eggs aswell, but there's a lot of color
potential in there because allof those Olive Aaba parents are
carrying the potential for blueegg jeans, different brown
shades.
There's a lot that can happencolor-wise in those offspring.
(17:10):
I think it's ex, I like thevariation of it, the potential.
I think it's exciting.
Jennifer (17:16):
Okay, so let's leave the boys, the F1 boys alone for
just a minute.
So we have the F1 girls and theyare gonna lay green eggs.
So you can't what would happen,you're gonna have two scenarios,
basically.
One where you breed back toeither blue or brown, right?
Or one where you breed to otherF1 boys, right?
(17:41):
Okay.
So to get the depth of color,those nice, rich olive colors,
are you going back to a Moran?
Nolie (17:49):
Yes, definitely.
You're going back to as dark ofa brown as you can breed to.
Okay,
Carey (17:57):
so you really need like a Moran with a, that produces a
egg color of seven, eight.
If you can find it, the deeper,the better on the brown.
Jennifer (18:08):
Definitely.
So how many generations have,have you done and have other
people done going back and like,how deep can you get that green?
Nolie (18:18):
Man, I don't even know the deepest that mine go right
now.
I have some f.
F what I'm calling F fourcrosses.
But basically those are secondgeneration back cross, hence,
which is, so I would've had myF1 generation, which was back
cross to a Morans, which wasback cross to Morans again.
(18:39):
And now I'm breeding to an afirst generation olba.
So their their offspring would,I'm considering fourth
generation, but you can go as,as, as long as you want.
Really just breeding and theappeal of, okay, both breeding
back to an Americana and back toa Morans are both considered
(18:59):
back crosses.
Which is, which is importanttoo.
'cause I think when most peoplehear back cross, they just
assume back cross to Moransbecause that's, most people are
trying to get those darkergreens.
I have one pen set up.
With some green laying handsback crossed to Americana
because that Americana parent isfor sure gonna be giving blue
(19:20):
egg genes to the offspring.
So it's a good way to make surethat you're reintroducing those
blue egg genetics.
So it's almost like that nextoffspring.
It's not a first generation, butthey're going to have the Blue
Egg genes and some of thoseolive brown genetics as well.
It's a good way to reintroduce,make sure the blue egg genetics
are reintroduced.
(19:41):
And that's how people like yousee people who are labeling
their eggs like Spearmint Eggersand Moss Eggers, and all these
fancy things.
Like they're probably just backcrossed to an Americana, or to
some bird where they canguarantee that they're, maybe
you can't, that there's moreBlue egg genetics being
reintroduced to get thosedifferent kind of shades of
(20:03):
teal, lighter greens andwhatnot.
Jennifer (20:08):
Okay, so let's go sideways for a minute.
Okay.
How do you go from back crossingall the Eggers to the Easter
acre to get those colors?
Or is it totally different?
My
Nolie (20:22):
line between all of Eggers and Easter Eggers.
Okay.
And my theory is that with allof Eggers, the, at first of all,
it has to do with thesaturations of the brown
genetics that you're using.
I personally feel like it alsohas to do with knowing the
lineage.
You know that when you just getinto like Barnard mixes of all
just breed this bird with thisbird and see what colors come
(20:42):
out.
I now you're stepping intoEaster anger territory.
But if you wanted to lightenyour eggs.
From a dark olive, then youwould breed that hand to a
lighter a white, a lake horn orbrass, or some bird from lighter
egg color genetics, cogens, thatwould lighten up the eggs in the
next generation for sure.
(21:03):
But who would even wanna dothat?
Why would you even do that?
Do.
Carey (21:07):
How do you, that was a noli that said that.
So feel free if direct thosecomments there because that
Nolie (21:17):
there's a woman.
There's a woman on my Facebookpage.
Oh my goodness.
Vera, come here, you stop that.
Hugs anyways, there's a woman, Ihave a running joke with a woman
on my Facebook page because shemessaged me.
Most people when they messageabout olive bakers, they want
your darkest eggs.
Can I only have BC two crossesor can I have your speck?
(21:38):
Like they want these reallydark, speckled, heavy bloom
eggs.
And this bone woman went, womanmessaged me and she actually
preferred the like re nightswhen I was like.
I've never heard of, I've neverhad anybody ask me.
So now we have a running joke,in our conversations or posts on
Facebook.
It's really funny.
She's sweet.
Jennifer (21:56):
So you have nicknamed your line, the Dirty River Eggs,
right?
Nolie (22:02):
I didn't do it.
Somebody on Facebook one timewas, I had posted a picture of
some eggs a couple years ago,and in her defense they were
like, like these moav likepinkish looking.
They, the offspring would'vebeen first generation olives.
They were like brown eggs andlike green eggs.
But anyways, she messaged me, Ilisted them on my Facebook page
and she messaged me and she waslike, I don't mean to be rude.
(22:24):
But do people really buy thesebecause they just look like
Dirty River water to me.
Carey (22:32):
I love that.
It's like setting it up.
I don't mean to be rude, but I.
Nolie (22:38):
I was like, not even offended.
It was so funny, that I wasn'teven offended.
It was just clear to me thatshe, didn't have experience with
these A colors and that wasfine.
But I had made a post.
I kept her anonymous, but I madea post about it on Facebook just
'cause it was so funny to me.
And of course, everybody whoread it was hysterical and it
just cut from then on, it waslike, okay, these are dirty
(22:59):
river water eggs and I love it.
Thank you.
So if she's out there and she,if she even remembers, then
thank you for the tagline, itwas the best marketing tool that
I've ever come across.
Wow.
Jennifer (23:13):
Okay.
So how
Nolie (23:14):
do you get those mov and those pink eggs?
It's a, it's an elusive thing.
Really mob and pink is not anegg color.
Like we talked about, you getblue and you get white eggs.
Even the browns over the brownsgreens, that all has to do with
pigment that's deposited overthe egg.
And it's the same with pinks.
(23:35):
Pinks typically come from heavybloomed cream eggs, or morans,
but usually the really heavybloomed morans eggs tend to look
more purple, or like deep rosy,which is pretty, but like I have
some wine dots right now who layreally light pink colored eggs,
but it all has to do with thedeposit of the bloom that's on
(23:56):
there.
Gotcha.
It's the same too, when you seegray looking olive eggs, it's
all, it has to do with the bloomthat's on the egg.
Those eggs look really beautifuland they are really beautiful,
but they're hard to hatch.
That heavy bloom makes that eggless porous and can, they can be
really difficult to hatch.
Jennifer (24:19):
Okay.
Alright, now rabbit hole time.
I'm just forewarning now.
Okay.
So I did Morans.
For one hot, one hot minute.
And I learned really quicklywhile I was trying to buy my
foundational stock that.
(24:39):
People do not keep theirbrooders straight.
So when I bought Moran eggs orchicks in one instance, I got a
lot of olive acres.
Because the guy did not keephis, it was a man did not keep
his brooders straight.
And he could
not tell.
So I saw that a lot in thegroups people sharing that with
(25:04):
me, that pet peeve, did you buychicks or hatching eggs?
Let's see.
Those were chicks.
Nolie (25:12):
Yeah.
Jennifer (25:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how do you keep your straightMorans and your olives?
I
Nolie (25:18):
have learned that I can't house them together, period.
I don't hatch them together.
I don't brood them together.
I don't house them together.
Hang on.
I'm gonna put this dog and this.
She doesn't know how to behave.
Fear.
You lost your chance to be inthis room.
Jennifer (25:34):
I don't house them together
Nolie (25:35):
at all.
Jennifer (25:37):
And then you band them or tag them somehow later?
Nolie (25:40):
Nope.
I just don't ever house themtogether.
Oh.
'cause honestly, like with theback crosses, once you're back
crossing all of bakers tumor,they can look very similar, and
the only way to tell them apartwould be genetic testing.
And I would hate that toaccidentally put an Oli Baker
Rooster over Morans and then notfind out for another year and be
selling all those hatchings.
(26:01):
That would be terrible.
I have sold somebody olive ofacres as Morans.
I have done that before
Carey (26:07):
and it, and that is a really good excuse to have a lot
of brooders.
Nolie (26:12):
Yeah.
But this woman, she reallywanted Morans, and I, she didn't
know that she had olive acresuntil seventh months later she
sent me some pictures and waslike, Hey, can you gimme some
feedback on these Morans?
And I was like.
Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
That is clearly an olive bakerrooster.
Fortunately, she's local andvery kind, and we worked it out
over the next two years, butI've done it too.
(26:34):
It happens what I'm sharing.
But that's why now I just don'teven house'em together,
Jennifer (26:41):
so it doesn't, it is not even a possibility.
Nolie (26:43):
I think in her situation I might have mixed up eggs is
what happened.
It may not have even been thehousing.
It may have just been myclerical error.
I.
Jennifer (26:51):
You know what?
That's how I got my firstcoaching.
I brought my eggs.
Yep.
And then this buddy popped outand I was like, what is that?
Because that is not whitetrauma.
Nolie (27:00):
Did you get more, I noticed you said my first
coaching.
Jennifer (27:03):
Oh yeah.
I ended up like going the wholeway with coaching, so that's a
whole nother story.
Yeah.
Got rid of all the bras and wentto coaching.
So how would somebody choose areputable breeder then, who has
both Morans and all the VAs?
(27:24):
Would you have any advice forthem?
Nolie (27:25):
I would say first of all, that, everybody makes mistakes.
Things happen, and genetics isnot an exact science, but I
don't know.
I feel like by looking throughsomebody's.
Facebook page and their postsand the types of things that
they're sharing and their,website.
I, I don't know.
I think that there's a way todiscern who's serious, and who's
(27:46):
just throwing birds together.
You can look and I would saylook at the egg colors, and look
at multiple different, whatthey're showing you.
Jennifer (27:55):
Yes.
And realize that you can't justlook at a chick and tell what
color egg it's gonna.
But
Nolie (28:02):
absolutely not.
And when it comes to oliveEggers and egg color genetics,
you, this is another huge thing,is you can't even look at the
egg color of the egg.
You're hatching, and predict.
What the offspring is.
As a breeder I can say I'm gonnatake this really beautiful,
heavy bloom, speckle, olive egg,and I'm gonna breed the hen who
lays it back to a morans.
(28:22):
And my hope is that theoffspring lays a darker, deeper
green with the heavy blooms andspeckles.
But I.
It's not an exact science.
I mean there is something like13 different genes involved with
brown pigmentation.
There is a lot happening there.
So as olive ager breeders, weare just pairing up the best
matches that we can, with thecolors and genetics that we know
(28:45):
of and hoping that.
Nature does the best, fromthere.
But in those back crosses toMorans there, it's really
important that people know thatthose offspring could also lay
brown eggs.
But I've had some back crosseswho laid brown instead of green
and laid like really cool bloomsand I ended up using those Hess
somewhere, with true blue layersor somewhere else in a program.
Jennifer (29:10):
So there is a possibility that an olive egger
would lay a brown egg,
Nolie (29:15):
a later generation olive egger or back crossed olive egg.
Yes.
It needs to be an expectationthat it could happen at least
50% of the time, like probproba, probability wise.
It may or may not, butprobability wise, there is a 50%
chance.
Carey (29:33):
I think that should be like a risk that somebody
understands going into it.
Nolie (29:39):
Agree.
Carey (29:40):
Especially when you're dealing with shipped eggs.
You're gonna have hatchabilityissues like what you talked
about earlier, and they're oliveacres.
Yeah.
You past F1, you don't know what you're gonna get.
Nolie (29:57):
That is true.
It's all
Jennifer (29:58):
predictions.
Carey (30:00):
It's the chicken box of chocolates.
Jennifer (30:01):
Yes.
It is not a breed.
It is essentially just a babarnyard mix.
It's a mu Yep.
A very specific barnyard mix.
Correct.
For a purpose okay.
All right.
I think that I better understandgenetics.
Carey (30:21):
It's a really cool science experiment.
Nolie (30:23):
It's really fun.
I love Olive Bakers.
Olive Bakers are one of myfavorite passion projects, and
like I said, I have multiple didifferent pens set up with my, I
have a, the olives to olives,the olives back cross to Morans
olives, back cross toAmericana's.
I am particularly excited aboutsome projects that I'm working
on for next year.
(30:43):
One of the things that.
I like least about olive egg isthat there's no kind of standard
for them.
You know what I mean?
They all look different, bedepending on the different
breeding pairs that we're doing.
And so I'm really excited thatI'm working on the silver olive
Eggers, and I'm working on wheatand olive egg too, to create a.
There are other people doingthis already.
I think Holly Oaks up in Maineis already doing the wheat and
(31:07):
olive bakers, for example.
But I'm excited to be workingwith that.
A variety, of olive bakers, justas opposed to, we'll see what
pops up, which I like.
It's, it's, I like the variety,but I'm excited to have the
standard Silver and Wheatenpresentation form.
Jennifer (31:24):
Okay.
One thing I forgot to ask you,so for somebody who's just
starting out with these rainbowegg genetics you can you, what
expectation would you havebreeding olive to olive?
Just of any color.
Nolie (31:40):
Let me say that I, if anybody watching follows me on
Facebook, I have a pinned postto the top of my, and on
Facebook, I'm Mojo Homestead FLOfficial, and there is a pinned
post at the top of my page thathas some reference charts like
using actual eggs that mightlike saying, I bred this hand to
a rooster from this, with theegg colors and then a couple
(32:02):
eggs showing some potential.
That the offspring could lay aswell.
But breeding F1 to F1, I wouldexpect any variation of greens,
darker greens, browns, maybesome kind of like spear colors
in there.
Just some variation of color.
I wouldn't necessarily expectdarker greens, but I don't, they
(32:23):
could surprise you, I don'tknow.
Jennifer (32:25):
But if you started getting down to F two, F three,
F four, and just trying to breedthose together.
Nolie (32:30):
You're gonna get
Jennifer (32:31):
more brown eggs, just normal brown eggs.
Nolie (32:34):
Yeah, it would depend on what you know about the rooster.
Obviously you would always wannastart with a green laying hen
and if you, I.
Once you start to get into thoseF two and F three roosters,
without some kind of eitherbreeding and testing or genetic
testing, you can't know for sureif that rooster is carrying blue
(32:56):
egg genes, so it's hard to knowif he has the potential to pass
that down.
Jennifer (33:02):
Gotcha.
Nolie (33:03):
Which would just mean that there's more probability
for brown eggs than if you werecarrying at least one copy of a
Blue egg gene.
Jennifer (33:12):
So reasonable expectation if somebody said,
Hey, I just threw my olive eggin a pen together, you could
literally get anything fromlight brown to olive.
Nolie (33:24):
When you put it that way.
Yes.
Yes.
Like when I, I offer my dirtyriver water.
Eggs are multi-generationaldozens.
So when I sell people all of eggor dozens, I'm selling them or
I'm shipping them 14 eggs thatare gonna contain the, as much
potential as possible for likecool and green eggs, they're
gonna be eggs from each of myolive pens.
(33:47):
Including first generation,including bread bact to
Americana to give them hopefullythe best start they can with
like a.
Cool colored green, teal egg,heavy bloom, speckled basket,
and that's if people are seriousabout wanting olive eggs and
darker eggs.
My suggestion with, and I don'tmean to be rude, we were talking
(34:08):
about earlier, is do ityourself, and again, I really
don't mean that to be rude, Imean that, because that way you
will know what you're workingwith and you will know the
genetics, so you have a betteridea of.
The potential and what'shappening in those lines?
Jennifer (34:24):
My, my thought behind my question was more like
somebody, a post you might seeon Facebook that says, oh, I
bought these olive acres fiveyears ago, and they've been in a
pen all by themselves for fiveyears.
Then, you realistically, you'regonna get pretty much any color,
Nolie (34:44):
so long as the hens are laying green, they are carrying
at least one blue white gene.
So there's always gonna be atleast 50% chance of some
variation of some shade ofgreen.
At the very least.
Jennifer (35:00):
Okay, I understand now.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Can, where can people order eggsfrom you?
Do you have a website oranything?
I.
Nolie (35:09):
I do have a website it's mojo homestead fl.com, but I use
my website primarily to showcasemy birth.
There's where you can find allmy pictures and pricing and
information on shipped eggs andwhatever else I get going on
over there.
But I handle all of my ordersdirectly through Facebook and
Facebook Messenger.
I like to talk to peopledirectly and I like to have a
(35:31):
space where I can communicatewith them easily about shipping
or.
Anything that comes up.
So if you wanted to order eggsdirectly from me, then the thing
to do would be to find me onFacebook and shoot me a message.
But this summer, I'm, I am onewoman and a pretty small breed.
So availability is touch and go,and especially coming into
(35:54):
summer olives are, I usually cancome up with availability pretty
quickly just because I work theminto so many different places.
I have a good number of them,but availability is touch and go
throughout the summer, for sure.
Spring is the time I'd saypeople are really serious about
hashing eggs.
Starts in January, which iscrazy because you'd think it'd
be a couple months later, butit's not.
(36:14):
It's January.
Jennifer (36:16):
Yeah.
If you're serious about Nain,and this goes for pretty much
any species of poultry, youorders start in November on its,
and if you're waiting untilApril, you're really, might be
outta luck almost.
Yeah.
I
Carey (36:35):
would be surprised if you wait till April and you're not
outta luck.
Nolie (36:39):
It doesn't depend.
Like I, this year chose not, I'mnot doing a, I didn't do a wait
list this year.
I didn't do any wait list.
I didn't do any contact listsbecause I can't handle the
stress of it.
I can't handle the stress ofkeeping people waiting and
people checking back in and whatare my eggs.
And so this year I said, I'mjust gonna try to do it all on a
first come first serve.
Basis.
And what's happened is I'd listone dozen, say I have a dozen
(37:02):
olive of eggs available, andthey'll be gone quickly, but
then two or three more peoplewill come behind them and I'll
take payments out so far as twoto three weeks.
That seems to be a good timeperiod to predict what the flock
is doing, and serve thoseorders.
And then, so I can.
Keep up with that, witheverything without getting
overwhelmed by the orders andwithout people waiting so long,
(37:24):
that they become restless.
Like I've seen ha I see ithappen a lot, I've had it happen
a lot and I, this year I waslike, I need to protect my peace
somehow.
Jennifer (37:36):
What else do you have going on at your little farm
down there?
You're in Florida in case peopledidn't pick up.
Yeah.
Part?
Nolie (37:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh man.
It's been a tough year.
Honestly.
I've had a lot of losses topredators this year.
I've had some kind of newpredator in my chicken yard,
which I still haven'tidentified.
My solution has been just to.
Fortify the coops where I'mputting the smaller birds, which
is what had, was being taken.
So that's, remedied for now.
(38:07):
And then I had a really seriousbout with Cox City this year,
which was terrible.
So I'm really, it's been a toughyear over here with grow outs
and predators and coccidia inparticular.
And hurricanes.
Oh my God.
Don't even, thanks for remindingme.
Jennifer (38:27):
So a
Nolie (38:27):
breeder
Jennifer (38:28):
world kind of starts after the molt in the fall.
Like we start pulling our birdsand mentally start putting them
together.
And then we may even startmaking, pairings what, in
November, December?
Sometimes.
Yeah.
Depending on your weather.
Yeah.
So you're, you were trying tomentally prepare for this year
when hurricanes decided to gothrough.
(38:50):
Absolutely.
Nolie (38:51):
Yeah.
Last year was very tough withthe hurricanes and hurricane
season starts, actually, it'sJune 1st through like October,
and it is hot.
Who knows.
We'll hope for the
Jennifer (39:03):
best this year.
Yeah, I think they extended it,didn't they?
Did they?
They were talking aboutextending hurricane season.
All the good news.
Carey (39:13):
This is the south.
Okay.
So if you don't like theweather, just wait about half
hour.
It'll change.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they can say it's gonna doone thing tomorrow, but it's
probably not.
It's gonna do something else.
Nolie (39:26):
Yeah.
I think for us, where I'mlocated, I'm in like the armpit
of Florida.
I think that there was somethingabout, has been something about
the jet stream over the lastcouple years and it was just
like funneling all the storms upthrough and we saw these
historic storms last year thatwere like, this area's never
seen any.
There was, it wasn't like therewas just one or two we're
(39:47):
talking like there was threemajor storms in the span of a
year that it was wild.
Carey (39:53):
That's crazy.
Jennifer (39:54):
What other breeds are you working with that we didn't
mention?
Nolie (39:58):
My bread and butter are morans and wine dots.
Blue laced red wine dots blackla blue laced, red wine dots,
and black copper Morans.
Those are the breeds that I havebeen working with the longest
and that I am the most focusedon when it comes to standards of
perfection.
Not that I don't know that I'llever actually be there, but the,
(40:20):
I try to stay focused.
But I also work with Americana.
I work with Silver, Americana,Isabelle, Americana, wheat and
and Wheat and Americana andIsabelle Wheat and splits.
I also have lavender Americana,but I.
I am considering that I may notcontinue with them moving
forward.
I'm not.
We'll see, once fall comes whatI wanna do.
(40:43):
And then of course there's theOlive Eggers and I also do
summers, silver, summers inparticular, and Silkies.
But I have a silky fun pen.
You like silky?
So is that what the fa You lovesilky, huh?
Jennifer (40:59):
No.
Off the air.
We are
Nolie (41:01):
yeah, we, yeah, we make, they're
Carey (41:03):
her favorite.
Nolie (41:04):
It's fine.
I, listen, I said I would never,ever have silkies and then I
accidentally got some silkiesand then I said I would never,
ever have showgirls, and nowthey're my favorite.
Carey (41:16):
So like for me it's being at a show and seeing the silky
people some of the things thatsome of them do is a lot,
Jennifer (41:27):
yeah.
So I went to a show, I don'tknow, probably close to a month
ago now, and we were millingaround talking, waiting for them
to count points and do awardsand stuff, and, this, I was
talking to this lady and she washolding a silky, and it was
white, and she just sat down onthe curb and put the silky down
on the ground.
(41:47):
And I just looked at her and Iwas like, will it just stay
there?
And she goes, oh, it won't moveat all.
Like it's there it will staythere all day.
And I was thinking my chickens,my giant chickens run across the
field like puppies for sure.
Nolie (42:03):
Yeah.
They're more prone to parasitesin my opinion, because they're
less prone to pre, they havemore vitamin deficiency issues
and other breeds.
And honestly, my silkies are anabomination to the silky world.
Like it's a fun pen, withdifferent colors, feather types.
(42:23):
Satins, which apparently aretheir own breed.
Satins are no longer silkies, ormaybe they never were silkies.
I don't know.
It's a whole thing.
Depending on who you talk to,you feel really strongly about
it.
But, so I have satin butanyways, it's fun and here's the
thing about breeding chickens.
I don't ever have any plans toshow chickens.
I guess maybe like I didn't everhave any plans to be on this
(42:44):
podcast, but I don't have anyplans to do that at this point.
I breed for like with the Moransand the wine dots and.
The Americana, I'm mindful ofthe standards because I want to
be mindful of what I'm puttingout in the community, but in
general, most people don't care.
Like in general, most peopledon't care about the standards
(43:04):
of perfection unless they'reshowing, they just want.
Nice, pretty healthy chickens,or in my case, chickens that lay
certain colored eggs, so withthe people who buy silkies from
me they're buying pets for theirkids and their house chicken, or
whatever, they're cute littlesilky showgirl chickens.
I will say that my silkies aremy most reliable hatching eggs.
(43:27):
They're always fertilized.
They do great shifts.
So they're just a staple overhere.
Jennifer (43:34):
One of my biggest sellers, and I haven't done it
in a few years, but I took aCoachin mail and put over a Buff
Orpington.
And the offspring were, theywere black, they orpingtons with
feathers down to their.
Toes.
But
not heavily like a coachin.
(43:56):
But then the feathers, theypicked up a gold fleck, almost
like a Colombian.
Really?
Yes.
And they were super, super coollooking, and I couldn't hatch
enough of those things.
Nolie (44:10):
Did they breed True?
Did you?
To each other?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennifer (44:13):
No, they looked terrible.
The second generation wasterrible.
Yeah.
But the first generation wasfreaking awesome and they picked
up all the best qualities, thebroodiness of the Coachin.
The great Mama of the Orpington.
Just the friendliness.
And they were great.
Yeah.
Carey (44:31):
People love that stuff.
Jennifer (44:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's.
I called them black goldbecause, they were gold and
black and yeah.
Yeah.
That's neat.
But yeah, they were just, but Ijust didn't do it again.
I did it two years and I justdidn't do it again, we run out
of Penn space.
You, you do this and you runoutta pen space.
I
Nolie (44:48):
understand.
Hence, my, my, maybe make adecision about the lavender,
Americana.
I'm not sure yet.
Yeah, I understand.
Carey (44:56):
Probably depends on what the grow out pin looks like come
November.
Nolie (45:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Depends on how coccidia servesme for the rest of the summer.
Jennifer (45:08):
We appreciate you coming on and so maybe you come
back one day, maybe take a good
Nolie (45:15):
topic and we'll see.
Jennifer (45:17):
Come on.
Okay.
We'll find some wrap.
I'll invite you on, I'll teaseyou and then we'll do rabbit
holes.
Okay?
Yes, I like those.
Alright, talk to you later.
Alright, bye.
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