Wondering If Calcium Color Can Affect Egg Shell Speckles

[jofanx]

I was reading a novel (The Sea Captain's Wife by Beth Powning) and in it there's a section where they had a chicken on board during a famine who was laying shell-less eggs, and apparently they crushed up their colored coat buttons (which were made of bone or something calcium, I guess), and the eggs came out with rainbow colored speckles. I know this book is a work of fiction, but was wondering if it's possible.

If it was possible without harming the chickens, I would love to see some rainbow speckled eggs and use them for crafts. What do you guys think?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Probably fiction but possible if there were dyes on the buttons that made it to the pigment sites in the shell gland.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

It would be easier to dye or paint the eggs after they are laid.

It sounds unlikely. Chickens eat all kinds of colored foods, but it rarely affects anything but the yolk.