Need some info on egg colors, etc!

[ShockValue]

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[JR90]

 

[MelloChick]

I purchased about 10 chickens in March from my pet chicken. All according to the color eggs to be produced, now I can't tell which chicken is laying which egg. Any suggestions on how to figure this out? We have 23 girls and one boy.

 

[N F C]

I purchased about 10 chickens in March from my pet chicken. All according to the color eggs to be produced, now I can't tell which chicken is laying which egg. Any suggestions on how to figure this out? We have 23 girls and one boy.

I don't know what breed of chickens you have, but follow this link to see if it helps. There are a lot of characteristics given for each breed, including egg color.
http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

If you have more than 1 chicken per breed, at least you can rule out the rooster!

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is an old thread but I’ll respond anyway since it has become newly active. It happens all the time on here. I’m not being critical and old threads often deserve to be activated.

For egg shell color, theory and reality are two totally different things. The shade of egg a certain breed should lay is set by the SOP (Standard Of Perfection) that defines the breed and is a target serious breeders that want to preserve the breed’s heritage aim for, but there not many breeders that aim for that. Behaviors and things like that are also part of a true heritage chicken. If you read up on heritage chickens, you will often see comments that there are only three or four flocks in the country with true heritage chickens of a certain breed. Some people that breed for show only breed for what the judge sees. The judge doesn’t see an egg shell color, especially with roosters. Some people breed more for production than following the strict SOP for other things. Some people just breed hatchery quality chickens and don’t even know what an SOP is. Hatcheries don’t produce SOP quality heritage chickens, even those that follow the SOP to choose their breeders. The pen-breeding method they use does not lend itself to getting SOP results and their prices show that.

Chicken egg shell generics get pretty complicated. There is one gene pair that sets the base color, white or blue. That is as simple as it gets. There are a whole lot of different genes that determine shades of brown or green. Some are recessive, some are dominant. Some cancel each other out. Some enhance what others do. It is pretty normal to get totally different egg shell colors than you would expect when crossing certain chickens when certain recessive genes match up or a dominant gene doesn’t get passed on.

It gets even worse. A hen will “normally” lay a certain shade of egg, but that can vary. Most of the brown color gets laid on the egg in the shell gland after the main shell is completed. But if the egg is laid a little earlier than normal, the egg can be lighter than normal. If it is delayed some, it can be darker. If it is smaller than normal, it can be darker. If it is larger than normal, it can be lighter. Then the longer the hen has laid since the molt, the lighter the shell color normally becomes. She recycles dead red blood cells to make that color so the raw material is always there, but somehow that color gets lighter with time. Maybe she uses up a certain chemical she stored during the molt that is a catalyst. I don’t know exactly why it happens but with some hens especially the result can be pretty dramatic. Some fairly dark egg layers are sometimes laying eggs that are almost white just before they molt.

There are only two ways I know of to tell what shade and color of egg a hen lays. One is some version of a trap nest. Lock a hen in a nest, see what shade of egg you get, and hope it is her normal shade. It will be her color, either base blue or base white. Just because you see a hen on a nest does not mean the egg you find in that nest is hers. Another hen may have laid it and the hen you saw may leave that nest without laying an egg there. I’ve seen a hen that lays a green egg in a certain nest, but when I go back later there is a brown egg in there and her egg is in another nest.

You can try putting food coloring in a hen’s vent in the morning before she lays and hope to find colored streaks on the egg.

I don’t know an easy way to tell which hen is laying which egg unless you put some real effort into it. Even then it can be challenging.

 

[MelloChick]

Thanks for the information. Who would have thought that making a egg would be so complicated

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's not the egg, that's just the egg shell color.

 

[FL Crowing Hen]

I'm new to chickens, and I got my first egg today. My small flock of hens consists of a 24 week old EE, a 2 year old EE, a 24 week old Black Sexlink, a 10 month old Black Copper Maran, a 10 month old Black Copper Maran/EE cross, and a 10 month old EE/RIR cross.

This is the egg I got today. The 24 week old pullets aren't laying yet, and I 'm pretty sure it didn't come from the EE, the Black Copper Maran, or the Black Copper Maran//EE mix. That leaves the EE/RIR mix. Is it possible that this pale brown egg came from her?

Unless I'm mistaken, I expect the following egg colors from my girls:

EE - pastel green, blue, and /or pink
Black Copper Maran - dark chocolate brown
Black Copper Maran/EE - olive green
Black Sexlink - brown
RIR/RR - pale brown?

So am I right on the egg colors I'm anticipating? What's the consensus? Who did this egg come from?

 

[evemfoster]

I'm new to chickens, and I got my first egg today. My small flock of hens consists of a 24 week old EE, a 2 year old EE, a 24 week old Black Sexlink, a 10 month old Black Copper Maran, a 10 month old Black Copper Maran/EE cross, and a 10 month old EE/RIR cross.

This is the egg I got today. The 24 week old pullets aren't laying yet, and I 'm pretty sure it didn't come from the EE, the Black Copper Maran, or the Black Copper Maran//EE mix. That leaves the EE/RIR mix. Is it possible that this pale brown egg came from her?

Unless I'm mistaken, I expect the following egg colors from my girls:

EE - pastel green, blue, and /or pink
Black Copper Maran - dark chocolate brown
Black Copper Maran/EE - olive green
Black Sexlink - brown
RIR/RR - pale brown?

So am I right on the egg colors I'm anticipating? What's the consensus? Who did this egg come from?

EE's can lay shades of brown and tan too. It all depends on what they are crossed with. EE's are crosses, they usually have ether Ameracauna (blue eggs) or Araucanas (light blue eggs) in their background, crossed with just about anything else. The color of the eggs depends on what they were crossed with. The more crosses in there background the more complicated the genetics. I read on the EE forum that there are 14 different brown genes alone to complicate things. And there is also the possibility that your EE's could have come from a long line of EE's that has several different breeds crossed into the line a few generations back. So unless you know the full history of your birds and you started with ether of the original breeds there is never a 100% guarantee that you will get the colors you are aiming for. But its quite a thrill when you do.

 

[FL Crowing Hen]

EE's can lay shades of brown and tan too.  It all depends on what they are crossed with.  EE's are crosses, they usually have ether Ameracauna (blue eggs) or Araucanas (light blue eggs) in their background, crossed with just about anything else. The color of the eggs depends on what they were crossed with.  The more crosses in there background the more complicated the genetics. I read on the EE forum that there are 14 different brown genes alone to complicate things.  And there is also the possibility that your EE's could have come from a long line of EE's that has several different breeds crossed into the line a few generations back.   So unless you know the full history of your birds and you started with ether of the original breeds there is never a 100% guarantee that you will get the colors you are aiming for.  But its quite a thrill when you do. 

Thanks for the great info. So this egg could have come from eitherthe EE or the EE/RIR? I imagine the Maran and the Maran/EE would lay darker eggs. Is that correct?