Easter Eggers

[EasterEggers]

What color eggs can Easter Eggers lay? My sister (dermerchickens) has 2 and we are new to chickens and I was wondering.

 

[Mamabrinkles]

Most lay green or blue eggs, but some of the more rare ones lay pink eggs!

 

[dermerchickens]

We think ours will lay green, they have olive/greenish legs:

 

[Cindy in PA]

Most lay green or blue eggs, but some of the more rare ones lay pink eggs!

Rare pink eggs are merely a different shade of brown. Most brown eggs are lighter & can have any tint to them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

http://apa-abayouthpoultryclub.org/Edu_Material/Easter Eggers vs.pdf

This article from the Ameraucana Breeders Association site gives a good comparison of Araucana, Ameraucana, and Easter Eggers and the traits of each. As you can see, Easter Eggers have no traits. They can be anything. They are not a recognized breed so there is no agreed traits that makes them EE’s. We can all make up our own definition of what makes an EE. My personal definition is that I won’t call anything an EE unless the hen lays a blue or green egg, but that’s just personal. Egg color is not a requirement for many other people and certainly not for the hatcheries.

Egg shell color is pretty complicated genetically. There is just one gene pair that determines if the egg is white/brown versus blue/green. That part’s pretty simple. But there are a lot of genes that determine shade of green or brown. The base egg color is either white or blue. If brown is added to either of those, you get brown or green.

There is no genetic link between leg color and egg shell color. I make my own EE’s that lay green eggs and most of them have white or yellow legs, but that’s because of the breeds I’ve mixed in. There is a clue though. Many chickens that lay blue or green eggs have the pea comb, not the single comb. Not all for sure but many. The pea comb gene and the blue egg gene are real close together on the DNA, so most of the time if the chick inherits the pea comb gene it will also inherit the blue egg gene. There is no guarantee with this though. Just because most of the time the two genes are inherited together does not mean they are always inherited together and some EE’s have gone through a whole lot of different generations where that split could occur. You really can’t tell what color of egg am EE pullet will lay until she lays an egg, but if you see a pea comb, be encouraged. Don’t be totally discouraged though if you don’t see a pea comb. A blue or green egg is still possible.

Good luck with it. I’m sure hoping you get some blue or green eggs from them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

http://www.ameraucana.org/history.html

There are a lot of myths about EE’s on this forum. A green or blue egg laying chicken is just fascinating to many people. I sure enjoy them. This article about how Ameraucanas were developed straightens out a lot of those myths.

One of those myths is that EE’s are developed from Araucanas or Ameraucanas. The Araucanas and Ameraucanas were actually developed from EE’s. Cackle Hatchery’s colored egg laying flock was established before Ameraucanas were even developed in the 1970’s.

It’s a lot more involved than this, but a group of interested breeders formed a club then voted on what an Ameraucana should look like; eye color, leg color, size, shape, earlobe color, everything that describes an Ameraucana, then they created chickens that met that description. To me, that’s fascinating though some may find it boring.