Hen laying different colored eggs

[aart]

Olive egger?? Blue insides with brown coating, still working it's kinks out?

Blue shell with brown coating is green....so no.

 

[Rickey Lynn]

I am amazed. I never knew this was even possible. I learn something new everyday. Thanks for sharing

 

[GardenDmpls]

This is how it works. An olive egger is a cross between a blue egg layer and a brown egg layer. Blue eggs have the color blue imbedded in the shell. The shell has blue coloring all through it. If you look at a blue eggshell you can see it is blue inside and out. In a brown eggshell the color is a coating added by the hen to the outer part of the eggshell on its way down the oviduct. If you look at a brown egg you will see it is brown on the outside and white on the inside. Variations in the amounts of the two colors can make the eggs lighter or darker shades.

Now, when a blue egg chicken variety is crossed with a brown egg chicken variety, they get both the blue eggshell and the brown coating. The blue background seen through the brown coating makes the egg look green, and variations in the amounts of the colors can make it anything from pastel green to dark olive.

So, your hen's egg had the blue shell already made when something caused it to move back up the oviduct (it happens). A membrane and another thin coating of shell was placed over it as it came back down, and that one was given a brown coating. The blue shell may not have been thick or dark enough to give the brown coating a green look. It would be interesting to know if the inner side of the outer brown shell was a light blue.

 

[abujumana]

So one of my ladies laid 2 eggs with 2 shells 2 days in a row. The first day I thought okay it’s got a second shell no big deal, the 2nd day the egg inside is one color and the outside shell is another. I know that people say it’s impossible for a hen to lay 2 different colored eggs or their color to change but I’m thinking that may not be the case. Here is the proof.

I've never seen this before, and it has never happened to me in my life. It's truly a rare thing.

 

[thistlewick]

That's wild! I love how we are constantly reminded that we don't know everything, and nature can surprise us with its variety!

 

[Yardmom]

We had this happen as well, but our olive egger ended up with the blue on the outside. At the time we were wondering how two eggs got smashed together so perfectly...Then we got 2 more eggs that were similar. This was not a young hen, but an old hen, Maybe 7 at the time. She is 9 now and still lays normal olive eggs during the prime summer months.

 

[GardenDmpls]

Again, looks like a case of the egg going a little ways down the oviduct, then back up to get a partial coating of inner shell, then out before outer coating could be added. Nice to have a nine year old still laying. My oldest hen, nine year old leghorn named Amelia, passed this summer.