Why do different chickens lay different colors of eggs? ?
I’ve got all kinds of eggs from different breeds that are different colors.
So why is that? ?
White eggs…
Typically, white eggs come from the Leghorn breed.
Mine come from my Frizzle. She’s a fancy breed.
Brown eggs…
They could be anything from a light brown to a dark chocolate.
Brown eggs typically come from Rhode Island Reds, Welsummers, and several other breeds
The difference between white eggs and brown eggs?
The inside is no different. An egg is an egg.
It’s just the shell that is a different color
The brown dye gets put on the egg at the very last stage of the process before the egg comes out
I jokingly call it the ink blotter
So the brown colors are only on the outside of the eggshell
The inside of the eggshell is white
Blue eggs…
The eggshell color is not only on the outside, it’s on the inside too.
The reason for that is that it is put on earlier in the egg creation process than the brown colors
You might be wondering where does this blue color come from?
It’s actually a byproduct of the bile
It’s a DNA thing that only the blue breeds have.
There’s only three blue breeds: Ameraucana, Araucana, and Cream Legbars.
They’re the only three chicken breeds that lay blue eggs naturally
I’ve got Wheaten Ameraucanas and the Cream Legbars in my flock
There are some fancy breeds where people have crossbred and created super blues
But those are not natural, those were all manmade
Green eggs…
There are a couple of breeds that lay the green, and they’re mostly manmade crosses.
There’s only one breed that I’m aware of that naturally lays green eggs, which is Isbar or Silver Rudd Blue
I’ve got three of those in my flock
Now, you can also get green eggs from Olive Eggers and Easter Eggers
Olive Eggers are manmade, they’re a breeding creation, and so are Easter Eggers
Easter Eggers might not always lay green, they can lay pink, blue, or green
It just depends on the exact breeding of the Easter Egger
But every Easter Egger or Olive Egger hen will only lay one shade
So whatever shade she happens to lay, that’s the shade she’s always going to lay.
But how do you get the olive color?
Typically it is breeding a chicken that lays blue eggs with a chicken that lays brown eggs
If you have a flock of backyard chickens, consider an Easter basket full of naturally colored eggs
Remember … Be The Organic U – Feed Your Soul
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