Whose Eggs Are They??

I have a flock of chickens that will all be a year old in March. They are all farm store chicks.
I have 5 Buff Orpington, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Black Sex Link, 1 RIR, and 2 Easter Eggers. They are all protected by the finest Buff Orp Rooster around
Anyway, I am getting lots of eggs still, everyone started laying in about August. HOWEVER. I am only getting brown and light brown eggs now. No colored eggs. We got MAYBE 8 blue/green eggs total since everyone started laying and now nothing. So I started watching the colors a little closer and I am wondering if maybe the EE's lay light colored eggs sometimes, and not always blue green. And if not then is it normal for them to not lay real well? Just wondering whose eggs are whose and why everyone but my EE girls seems to be laying much.
Here's some pictures and a comparison picture of the normal brown eggs we normally get and then the occasional light colored egg.

Thanks!!




Here's the crew and their Rooster

My EE's have layed light green eggs
Your eggs look almost white
Could you take a closer picture of your EE's please
How old are your hens?

BoomChickaPop said:

My EE's have layed light green eggs
Your eggs look almost white
Could you take a closer picture of your EE's please
How old are your hens?

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My chickens will all be 1 year old in March. I don't have great pictures of them..they are very flighty
.




The gray in the first picture and the black in the second.

They are gorgeous EE's
Could it be their diet.
Did they ever lay darker green eggs?

No, we only ever got really pretty blue/green eggs from them. I have chalked it up to them being younger and it being winter. They are on regular layer feed just like everyone else. Scratch every once in a while in the winter (only ever 2 cups between 12 chickens).

saraiquimby1 said:

I have a flock of chickens that will all be a year old in March. They are all farm store chicks.
I have 5 Buff Orpington, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Black Sex Link, 1 RIR, and 2 Easter Eggers. They are all protected by the finest Buff Orp Rooster around
Anyway, I am getting lots of eggs still, everyone started laying in about August. HOWEVER. I am only getting brown and light brown eggs now. No colored eggs. We got MAYBE 8 blue/green eggs total since everyone started laying and now nothing. So I started watching the colors a little closer and I am wondering if maybe the EE's lay light colored eggs sometimes, and not always blue green. And if not then is it normal for them to not lay real well? Just wondering whose eggs are whose and why everyone but my EE girls seems to be laying much.

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I love this pic!!

saraiquimby1 said:

No, we only ever got really pretty blue/green eggs from them. I have chalked it up to them being younger and it being winter. They are on regular layer feed just like everyone else. Scratch every night in the winter (only 2 cups between 12 chickens).

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EE's can be less productive than other crosses...it's hard to say why and only time might tell how their overall production is.
Most pullets(birds under a year old)will lay thru winter with no supplemental lighting, but not all will.

One thing I see here is that you are feeding layer feed(16% protein?)and giving quite a bit of scratch which dilutes the already lowish protein and other nutrients.


I like to feed a 20% protein crumble to all ages and genders, as non-layers(chicks, males and molting birds) do not need the extra calcium that is in layer feed and chicks and molters can use the extra protein. Makes life much simpler to store and distribute one type of chow that everyone can eat. I do grind up the crumbles (in the blender) for the chicks for the first week or so.

The higher protein crumble also offsets the 8% protein scratch grains and other kitchen/garden scraps I like to offer. I adjust the amounts of other feeds to get the protein levels desired with varying situations.

Calcium should be available at all times for the layers, I use oyster shell mixed with rinsed, dried, crushed chicken egg shells in a separate container.

Animal protein (mealworms, a little cheese - beware the salt content, meat scraps) is provided during molting and if I see any feather eating.

My EE lays about 4 eggs a week and have always been olive in colour, see the egg at the top. Could be the diet but odd that they would change colour.

I'm not understanding why the diet is bad. Everything I've read says scratch is fine in the winter. They dont get much of it and it's not affecting anyone but the EE pullets. The feed is an 18% protein layer feed, and it's about the only feed our RK offers for layers.

saraiquimby1 said:

I'm not understanding why the diet is bad. Everything I've read says scratch is fine in the winter. They dont get much of it and it's not affecting anyone but the EE pullets. The feed is an 18% protein layer feed, and it's about the only feed our RK offers for layers. 

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3 of my EE's just started laying this past week after 2 months of molting. I gave them dog food and black oil sunflower seeds for extra protein. I have 7 EE's total...1 lays a light brown egg.

saraiquimby1 said:

I'm not understanding why the diet is bad. Everything I've read says scratch is fine in the winter. They dont get much of it and it's not affecting anyone but the EE pullets. The feed is an 18% protein layer feed, and it's about the only feed our RK offers for layers.

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18% is better, most are 16%.....it's very common and pretty easy to overfeed stuff that dilutes the basic feed nutritents...why I mentioned it.

Could just be that the EE's are not prolific layers.......time will tell.....mine tho older and molted took most the winter off laying even with supplemental light.