Why Eggs Are Different Colors

If you buy our eggs, you may notice they come in a gorgeous earth-toned rainbow of colors. Maybe you’ve wondered why eggs are different colors! Well, there’s a simple reason for this! Much of it boils down to the breed of the hen and her genetics. The birds we have at Mossycup Farms are “mutts, so to speak. Their genetics are mixed, and so those changes mean we get a lovely array of colorful eggs!

According to Michigan State University Extension, “Leghorn chickens lay white eggs while Orpington’s lay brown eggs and Ameraucana produce blue eggs. An Olive Egger, a chicken that lays olive green eggs, is the product of a cross between a hen and rooster that are from a brown egg and a blue egg laying breed. An interesting tip is to look at the chicken’s ear lobes; typically those with white ear lobes produce white eggs.”

The article linked above goes on to say that all eggs begin white, but as an egg passes through a hen’s oviduct (a process that takes around 26 hours), pigments are deposited onto the shell. These pigments only tint the outer shell of the egg, they don’t breach the inside, which is why the interior egg that we eat is always white.

Food for thought!