Meet Our Green Queen Chickens!
Check current egg & chick availability HERE.
What is a Green Queen?
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Green Queen (GQ) chickens are a multigenerational hybrid of olive egger that lay beautifully, bold GREEN eggs.
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While the designer breed is not currently recognized by the American Poultry Association (APA) or the American Bantam Association (ABA), it has gained recent press & media coverage thanks to a few corporate-modelled mega hatcheries.
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What Breeds are used to create a Green Queen chicken?
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To properly obtain the desired green pigment in eggshell color, GQs are typically crossbred between an Ameraucana chicken (known for their blue eggs) and one of the various Australorp chicken breeds (known for their dark brown eggs). While Ameraucanas are the most commonly selected blue egg layer for cross-breeding, other breeds such as the Araucana or Cream Legbar may also be used to obtain the blue pigment needed for future green egg generation. As for the brown egg laying breed, any bird known for producing darker brown or tan eggs will do just fine!
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***Our original F1 Green Queen Rooster is an Ameraucana x Black Australorp hybrid, while our current set of hens range from Cream Legbars, Buff Orpingtons, Golden Comets, Barnevelders, Production Blues, and some of our very own F1 and F2 generation Green Queens!
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How are further generations of Green Queens (F1/F2/F3/etc.) created?
When breeding or back-crossing a Green Queen to another Green Queen, future "F" generations are created! The 'F' stands for filial generation, which is a term used in genetics regarding offspring generation of a particular organism. While F1 is the first filial generation, F2 is the second filial generation obtained by crossing two F1 generations. F3 would be created by crossing two F2 generations, and so forth.
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Our F1 eggs are all various shades of tan, brown, and blue, thanks to our roo being the original F1 Green Queen. Any chicks fathered by our F1 Green Queen roo will carry the green egg alleles/genes, signifying them Green Queens as well. If the roo is bred to a tan/brown egg laying hen, F1 chicks will be produced & have a 98-100% chance of potentially laying green eggs. If bred to one of our F1 GQ hens, F2 chicks will be produced & have a 99.9999% chance of potentially laying DARK green eggs! With each GQ x GQ cross, darker pigment is more likely obtainable!
In a nutshell: Once F1 hens are bred back to our F1 rooster, F2 chicks are created, thus increasing the odds of potent green shell production! This year's F3 generation will be created by back-crossing an F2 hen either to the F1 roo or one of our F2 roosters!​
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What do the Green Queen chicks & adult birds look like?
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While all of our Green Queens are guaranteed to carry the same alleles/genes responsible for producing green eggs, their physical appearances can differ greatly depending on each individual bird's genetic makeup. Typically, a fully grown GQ will sport a beard, muffs, top hat, and sometimes even feathered legs! Most every one of our birds have black feathers with an iridescent shine. Occasionally, a bird will inherit a patch or two of other colors, ranging from red saddle feather, to speckled or 'barred' hackle feathers similar to the ones around a Cream Legbar's neck! As chicks, our F1 GQs tend to vary from yellow, red, grey or black with white patches, while the F2/F3 chicks almost ALWAYS appear identical to Black Australorp chicks (black with white patches). All chicks/birds will typically have black or slate blue pigmented feet, legs, and beaks, as well as dark eyes.​
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How are green eggs created?
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Technically speaking, there are only 2 genetically determined egg colors: white and blue. The blue egg gene is the most dominant, requiring only 1 copy of genes for blue pigment to be produced. White eggs are created by lack of! All chicken eggs start out as white. This is based upon the color of the calcium- based eggshell. There are at least 3 variants of white eggs. The brightest white is usually found in the Leghorn breed.
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Brown eggs are produced by the presence of an allele, which issues a brown, red, or tan coating over a white egg. Thus, green eggs are created when a brown-based coating is applied over a blue egg. When cracking open an olive-colored egg, one can visually see the original blue tint on the inside of the eggshell.
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Fun fact: Egg color is often tied to chicken earlobe color. Chickens who lay white eggs tend to have white earlobes, while colorful egg-producing breeds will usually have more colorful ears, to include red, yellow, peach, blue, purple, and black earlobes.
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A Little About Our Green Queen Roosters...
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Though unable to produce 'hen fruit', our Green Queen roosters still contain a copy of the necessary genes/alleles needed for green egg production; introducing one of our GQ roosters to your flock will guarantee that any chicks fathered by one of our birds carry a copy of the desired green genes/alleles as well!
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If interested in looking at eggs/poultry on-site & learning more about our birds, please reach out through Facebook messenger or email me at tolbirthandbio@gmail.com.
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Disclaimer: While chicks fathered by our Green Queen roosters are guaranteed to inherit a copy of the green-determining genes, desired egg color may not always be achieved. It is important to recognize genetics are far from perfect, and furthermore, TOL will not be held accountable for issuing refunds or exchanges of poultry
