tweetzone86
Songster
Hello all!
So I got 7 eggs out of 12 RIR pullets (23 weeks old)-woohoo!
Anyway, I had a couple of funkies that were surprising. Egg #1 was found outside in the run (which was odd because there is no secluded area in there- someone speculated the new layer got caught off guard). It was very cold, not frozen but not all that far off, and was an extremely pale almost white egg. Figured it was the cold and moved on, til...
Egg #2- the same pale color as egg #1. Collected out of the nest box this morning along with several others.
And finally, egg #3. This one was (I kid you not) a pale orange creamsicle type color! As in, a pale version of orange creme ice cream! I also suspect this was my newest layer, as a) she spent a good long while in there, and b) the egg color.
Now, I know that hatchery stock RIR's may not be 100% RIR genetically. One has paler breast feathers that are almost honey-colored. But the rest range from a deep rust to a dark mahogany color, and several even have blackish-green tailfeathers (no, they're not roos. All pullets) and blackish-red hackles. The orange egg layer was one of these- I got the egg after she FINALLY left the nest 1.5 hours later (I was sweeping and cleaning up the "human" area of the chicken shed/coop, then came in made lunch, went back out to check and she was still there...).
Now, logically I would guess that MAYBE the almost white ones might have come from the lightest-feathered one Fluffbun (was Fluffy but my 6 year old changed the name. She's honestly the only one that has a set name because she's the only one we can actually identify, due to the slightly lighter feathers). She was more yellow than red as a chick too, so clearly a mix of something (to be fair, we ordered 10 got 12 and all survived so who knows if she was one of the "freebies" or not).
But the orange one??? Anyone else ever have an orange egg??? And why would a RIR pullet with dark mahogany feathers lay an orange one and not a brown one?
So I got 7 eggs out of 12 RIR pullets (23 weeks old)-woohoo!
Anyway, I had a couple of funkies that were surprising. Egg #1 was found outside in the run (which was odd because there is no secluded area in there- someone speculated the new layer got caught off guard). It was very cold, not frozen but not all that far off, and was an extremely pale almost white egg. Figured it was the cold and moved on, til...
Egg #2- the same pale color as egg #1. Collected out of the nest box this morning along with several others.
And finally, egg #3. This one was (I kid you not) a pale orange creamsicle type color! As in, a pale version of orange creme ice cream! I also suspect this was my newest layer, as a) she spent a good long while in there, and b) the egg color.
Now, I know that hatchery stock RIR's may not be 100% RIR genetically. One has paler breast feathers that are almost honey-colored. But the rest range from a deep rust to a dark mahogany color, and several even have blackish-green tailfeathers (no, they're not roos. All pullets) and blackish-red hackles. The orange egg layer was one of these- I got the egg after she FINALLY left the nest 1.5 hours later (I was sweeping and cleaning up the "human" area of the chicken shed/coop, then came in made lunch, went back out to check and she was still there...).
Now, logically I would guess that MAYBE the almost white ones might have come from the lightest-feathered one Fluffbun (was Fluffy but my 6 year old changed the name. She's honestly the only one that has a set name because she's the only one we can actually identify, due to the slightly lighter feathers). She was more yellow than red as a chick too, so clearly a mix of something (to be fair, we ordered 10 got 12 and all survived so who knows if she was one of the "freebies" or not).
But the orange one??? Anyone else ever have an orange egg??? And why would a RIR pullet with dark mahogany feathers lay an orange one and not a brown one?
I am just planning on selling the extras to pay for their feed eventually, and given how dark 11 of them are, I wasn't expecting the pale or heavily speckled one- and I wasn't expecting orange at all! 
