What on earth is an EASTER EGGER?

[ScottyChic]

BEING NEW TO THIS WEBSITE I HAVE COME ACROSS TALK ABOUT EASTER EGGERS........
WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS?
IS THIS AN AMERICAN THING - SLANG TERM???
I HAVE NO IDEA but would dearly like to more about it.

Thanks

 

[barnaclebob]

its a breed of chicken similar to an americauna (or is it ameraucana?) that lays light blue or green eggs.

 

[ScottyChic]

Thank you for that information.

Is this a type of bird that has been around for a long time? Or has it been cross bred in latter years?

 

[MoreHens]

Hi all,

Easter Egger is a term people use for mixed breed chickens that are part Ameraucana or Araucana. They may lay green, blue, pink or brown eggs (each hen only lays one color, but a flock of Easter Eggers can produce a variety of colors), like colorful Easter eggs.

The most common color I get is green, which comes from a mixture of blue and brown egg color genetics.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mtn Laurel]

I guess it would be considered an American thing as the breed of chicken that began it all - the Araucana - is from South America. A good article explaining the difference between the Araucana, the Ameraucana, and the Easter Egger can be found at the link below.

http://www.grit.com/animals/araucan...egger-rainbow-layer-whats-the-difference.aspx

I love finding a blue egg in my nesting box and the Easter Eggers are excellent layers as well as friendly and beautiful to look at.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here are a couple of links that give quite a bit of information on Araucana, Ameraucana, and Easter Eggers. I especially like that history of the Ameraucana. It clears up so many misconceptions and it demonstrates how breeds are created. People got together to decide what an Ameraucana should look like, then started breeding birds to create something that met that description.

EE/Ameraucana/Araucana comparison
http://apa-abayouthpoultryclub.org/Edu_Material/Easter Eggers vs.pdf

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

Easter eggers are sort of American slang, meaning descendants of the original blue egg layers from Chile that don’t meet the requirements of either Araucana or Ameraucana. As you can see in that link, the Araucana and Ameraucana were developed from Easter Eggers, not the other way around. Some American hatcheries flocks of colored egg layers were actually established before Ameraucanas were a recognized breed. Cackle for example.

I don’t know what you call your blue egg layers on that side of the pond. The requirements for the breed are likely different from ours, even if they are called the same thing. An easy example are the Marans, a breed that originated in France. In France to be a Marans the chicken has to have feathers on the legs. No so for Marans in the US. I don’t know about the blue egg layers.