What breed are these 3?

An Easter Egger that lays brown eggs is just a brown egg layer. To be considered an EE, a hen must lay a colored egg, not brown, ehite or cream. Incidentally, an EE hen that lays a "pink" egg is really laying a light brown egg.

enola said:

An Easter Egger that lays brown eggs is just a brown egg layer. To be considered an EE, a hen must lay a colored egg, not brown, ehite or cream. Incidentally, an EE hen that lays a "pink" egg is really laying a light brown egg.

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I'm not interested in getting in a big debate about it, and the stock is so mixed and varies so much by area that making any strict qualifications about what's an EE is difficult and will ultimately depend on who is talking. But in my opinion and based on my experience with these birds, an Easter Egger can lay a brown egg. If they come from the modern EE stock carried by most hatcheries, if they have a muff/beard, a pea comb, slate/willow legs, then they are, in my opinion, an Easter Egger. There is a reason the term "Easter Egger" was originally coined - actual, painted/plastic easter eggs come in all colors. The original mixture of stock in the 70s and 80s could produce any color, blue and green were just one of the possibilities. They were narrowed down to "mostly green/blue" because that's what demand dictated for.

And yes, a "pink" egg layer is technically and genetically a brown egg layer. But I have seen eggs that, physically, appeared to be a shade of light pink, so it's easier to refer to them as pink-layers.

enola said:

An Easter Egger that lays brown eggs is just a brown egg layer. To be considered an EE, a hen must lay a colored egg, not brown, ehite or cream. Incidentally, an EE hen that lays a "pink" egg is really laying a light brown egg.

Click to expand...

QueenMisha said:

I'm not interested in getting in a big debate about it, and the stock is so mixed and varies so much by area that making any strict qualifications about what's an EE is difficult and will ultimately depend on who is talking. But in my opinion and based on my experience with these birds, an Easter Egger can lay a brown egg. If they come from the modern EE stock carried by most hatcheries, if they have a muff/beard, a pea comb, slate/willow legs, then they are, in my opinion, an Easter Egger. There is a reason the term "Easter Egger" was originally coined - actual, painted/plastic easter eggs come in all colors. The original mixture of stock in the 70s and 80s could produce any color, blue and green were just one of the possibilities. They were narrowed down to "mostly green/blue" because that's what demand dictated for.

And yes, a "pink" egg layer is technically and genetically a brown egg layer. But I have seen eggs that, physically, appeared to be a shade of light pink, so it's easier to refer to them as pink-layers.

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Since EEs are hybrids and there is no official standards for them, BYC members have often disagreed in the past when a mixed breed is an EE and when it is not. However, in my personal understanding of EEs, a mixed breed that lacks the blue egg gene and lays an ordinary brown egg is just a mixed breed and not an EE. I know other experienced chicken owners here at BYC who have the same opinion. Otherwise it is impossible to draw a line between when a chicken is an EE and when it is just a mixed breed, especially considering that there are colored egg laying mixed breeds that do not have the pea comb and muffs that are common among EEs, and yet they are still considered to be EEs due to their colored eggs. I know there are those here at BYC who would disagree, but I would personally define an Easter Egger as a mixed breed that carries the blue egg gene.

Michael OShay said:

Since EEs are hybrids and there is no official standards for them, BYC members have often disagreed in the past when a mixed breed is an EE and when it is not. However, in my personal understanding of EEs, a mixed breed that lacks the blue egg gene and lays an ordinary brown egg is just a mixed breed and not an EE. I know other experienced chicken owners here at BYC who have the same opinion. Otherwise it is impossible to draw a line between when a chicken is an EE and when it is just a mixed breed, especially considering that there are colored egg laying mixed breeds that do not have the pea comb and muffs that are common among EEs, and yet they are still considered to be EEs due to their colored eggs. I know there are those here at BYC who would disagree, but I would personally define an Easter Egger as a mixed breed that carries the blue egg gene.

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Glad to hear you chime in Michael.

During this discussion & in the interest of improving my own knowledge (I am always glad to be told when I am wrong on an issue, lest I be responsible for the continued spread of misinformation) I went ahead and googled "Ameraucana vs. EE" since such articles tend to describe the egg color of each and are more informative than articles on either singular bird. This is what I found.

The first three results were articles or threads here on BYC.

1. Article: Ameraucana vs. Easter Egger. "Lay blue, green, or pink eggs"


2. Thread: EE, Ameraucana, & Araucana. "Eggs: has blue egg gene, eggs are blue, green, olive green, brown & pink"

3. Article: Easter Egger, Ameraucana, and Araucana: What's the difference? "Easter Eggers lay green, blue, olive and white eggs in the winter and in the summer." (Includes photo of mixed basket of blue, green, pink/brown, and white eggs).

The next two results include "Fresh Eggs Daily" and "The Chicken Chick" websites.

1. Fresh Eggs Daily Article: Ameraucana vs. Araucana vs. Easter Egger: The Blue Egg Layers. "Can lay blue but also sometimes lay green, tan, pink or even yellow"

2. The Chicken Chick Article: Araucana, Ameraucana, or Easter Egger? A. (In a graphic) "Any eggshell color possible." B. "Easter Eggers can lay a rainbow of egg colors, including: any hue of blue or brown or any combination of the two."

So the general public opinion seems to be that EEs can lay any color egg. Now as you said there is no standard for EEs so there is no "wrong" answer. But the favored opinion would appear to be that they can lay a color besides green or blue and still qualify as an EE.

QueenMisha said:

So the general public opinion seems to be that EEs can lay any color egg. Now as you said there is no standard for EEs so there is no "wrong" answer. But the favored opinion would appear to be that they can lay a color besides green or blue and still qualify as an EE.

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I'm not sure there is an established general opinion, although that's certainly the opinion of the links that you posted. It would be interesting to run a multiple choice poll in this section on how BYC members define an Easter Egger. ) It would be nice if some poultry governing authority would establish a standard definition defining an EE, but sadly that's not likely to ever happen. We have a lot of experienced chicken owners who frequent this section such as donrae, junebuggena, Wyandottes7, BantamFan4Life, BantamLover21, etc. and see how they define an Easter Egger. How about it ladies and gentlemen?

Michael OShay said:

I'm not sure there is an established general opinion, although that's certainly the opinion of the links that you posted. It would be interesting to run a multiple choice poll in this section on how BYC members define an Easter Egger. ) It would be nice if some poultry governing authority would establish a standard definition defining an EE, but sadly that's not likely to ever happen. We have a lot of experienced chicken owners who frequent this section such as donrae, junebuggena, Wyandottes7, BantamFan4Life, BantamLover21, etc. and see how they define an Easter Egger. How about it ladies and gentlemen?

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Yep, I love this idea. A poll run either here or in the general breed discussion forum. Is there a popular EE lovers thread around here? We could ask over there as well.

My definition kind of breaks up Easter Eggers into two groups. In one group are the typical, hatchery sourced birds and the birds that resemble Ameraucana or Araucana, but don't meet the standard. These birds at least have traces of Ameraucana-type ancestry and can reasonably be expected to produce a blue or green egg.
Then there Legbar mixes and other blue egg laying crosses; the ones that have absolutely no recognizable features of the Ameraucana-type birds. These are the ones where, if they blue/green eggs, then yes they are Easter Eggers.
With either type, if they don't lay blue or green eggs, then they are just mixed breeds.

Again, this is obviously an opinion (since there is no official SOP standards for EEs) but Wikipedia's definition for an EE (which corresponds with mine) is as follows:
An Easter Egger is any chicken that possesses the "blue egg" gene, but doesn't fully meet any breed standard defined in the American Poultry Association's (APA) standards, or in the case of Easter Egger bantams, the American Bantam Association's (ABA) standards. The name derives from the resemblance of their colorful eggs to Easter eggs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Egger). By this definition a chicken must carry the blue egg gene to qualify as an Easter Egger. The Ameraucana Breeders club defines an Easter Egger in exactly the same way "as any bird that possesses the blue egg gene but doesn't fully meet any breed descriptions as defined in the APA and/or ABA standards" (http://www.ameraucana.org/faq.html). I quote these sources not because Wikipedia or the Ameraucana Breeders Club are infallible but to demonstrate that there is a precedent for my definition of an Easter Egger.

Lots of good reading there. Thank you all! I'm enjoying enhancing my chicken knowledge and always loved genetics. And now I know which questions I should ask in my future purchases.

southernhusky said:

Lots of good reading there. Thank you all! I'm enjoying enhancing my chicken knowledge and always loved genetics. And now I know which questions I should ask in my future purchases.

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You're welcome.