Two possibilities, both unlikely

[JadedPhoenix]

I have four laying hens who are two years old. One lays a large blue egg, one a small blue egg, one a pink egg, and one a medium shade brown egg. The pink and brown egg hens are easter-eggers. Anyway, I've not gotten a brown egg in nearly a month and the most eggs that I've collected in a day has been three. Well today I went out and got excited when I saw four eggs in the box.

My excitement turned to confusion, however, when I saw that two of the eggs were pink. How is this possible? I got a pink egg yesterday and it was laid just after three in the afternoon. When I just went out, one of the pink eggs were still warm so it was freshly laid while the other one was cool from sitting for a while.

I know that it is rare for a chicken to lay two eggs in the same day (USUALLY during the long summer days and right now it is barely spring) and it isn't known for a chicken to start laying a different color egg so I'm stumped as to how I've gotten three perfectly pink eggs in only a twenty-four hour period.

Thoughts on this?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s not the blue or green egg layers. That’s for sure.

Two possibilities I’m aware of. One is just what you said, two in one day from one of the hens. Sometimes the hen messes up and starts a second yolk before she is supposed to. That can cause her to lay two eggs in one day. It doesn’t just happen in the summer. Often those egg shells will be a little messed up, especially if two were in her shell gland at the same time. One will leave an impression on the other. Quite often the second egg will have a really thin shell. The shell gland doesn’t always have enough time to make enough shell material for the second egg. That would be the one that lays the pink egg.

This chart has examples of two eggs on the shell gland at the same time. It’s the last two.
http://www.alltech.com/sites/default/files/alltech-egg-shell-quality-poster.pdf

The other possibility is that it was the hen that normally lays the brown egg. There are a lot of different genes that genetically cause a brown egg. One of those genes is what makes an egg pink and is common in EE’s. It’s mixed in with the shell as it is formed. Most of the other genes lay a brown coating on top of the egg after it is formed but while it is still in the shell gland. Sometimes a hen lays an egg early, before than brown gets deposited on top so it is the same color as the base shell color. I on rare occasions get an almost white egg because of that. If you crack a brown egg and look on the inside after you remove that membrane you can see the base shell color. If it is pink, this is a possibility. But if it is white, them it pretty much has to be that the other hen laid two pink eggs in one day.