Egg colour changing

So I got four chooks and 1 bantam. So slowly the bantam eggs are changing colour it's gone from brown to tinted to cream,white to blue,olive now going dark cho? Crazy!!!!

Magic is technology not yet understood.

The pigment that goes into the brown for egg shell color is made from recycled dead red blood cells. Red blood cells are dying and new ones are being made all the time so the raw material used for that process is constant. However, before a pullet starts to lay and during the time a hen is molting and not laying she stores up certain materials in her body to help with that process. It gradually gets used up. Normally the darkest egg a chicken will lay is the first in her laying cycle. The longer she lays the more gets used up so the egg gradually lightens. I’ve had some fairly dark brown egg layers lay almost white eggs before they take a break from egg laying and molt. When they start up laying after the molt the eggs are again nice and dark.

Occasionally a hen can have a glitch with her egg making system and lay an egg darker or lighter than normal, usually lighter. That can explain a really strange colored egg that comes out of nowhere. It’s not a big deal, the egg is still perfectly good to eat and it does not mean anything is wrong with the hen. Her system just had a hick-up.

Eggs getting lighter over time, perfectly normal and should be expected. Nothing crazy about it at all.

caw555 said:

So I got four chooks and 1 bantam. So slowly the bantam eggs are changing colour it's gone from brown to tinted to cream,
white to blue,
olive now going dark cho? Crazy!!!!

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Brown can go lighter, all the way to white.
White cannot go to blue.
Olive can go to blue, but not dark cho(-colate?)

The technology for a hen’s egg to go from white to blue or olive to dark chocolate is pretty simple. Different hens are laying those eggs. Genetically it is impossible for eggs to go from white to blue or olive to dark chocolate. Whether the other hens laying those eggs are yours or whether someone is playing a practical joke on you is still uncertain.

Ridgerunner said:

The technology for a hen’s egg to go from white to blue or olive to dark chocolate is pretty simple. Different hens are laying those eggs. Genetically it is impossible for eggs to go from white to blue or olive to dark chocolate. Whether the other hens laying those eggs are yours or whether someone is playing a practical joke on you is still uncertain.

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I wouldn't denote 'observer error' as 'technology' ....just 'bad data'....haha!

I’m not convinced it’s observer error. I think practical joke ranks way up there as a possibility.

It would depend on if those chooks were EE or not. With EE, blue, green, and varied shades of olive/aqua, tan, brown, pinkish possible. If a brown egg layer ran out of pigment, the egg could be very close to white. Or... practical joker has too much time on his hands.

Ridgerunner said:

I’m not convinced it’s observer error. I think practical joke ranks way up there as a possibility.

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Could be a jokester......Observation could solve that mystery too.

Well!!! some teenagers have been feeding her bits of food when they think I'm not looking, and she's gone quite pale?