Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: Rasco on November 15, 2010, 12:08
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Hi,
This may be a silly question but do egg shells change colour?
I have three girls and for a long time now I could pick out who lated what. A dark brown with speckles, a lighter brown and an almost white were the daily norm.
Now things look more like three light brown so either the colour has changed or there are strange goings on in my coop!
Any comments?
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yes they can (although blue egg layers tend to stay a shade of blue), it can depend on age, the weather etc so don't worry too much :)
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My Cuckoo Maran's eggs change colour from day to day - the others stay pretty much the same with very slight variations.
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I suddenly started getting white eggs after a couple of months, and now either she hasn't laid for 3 weeks, or they've changed colour again. ::)
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One of my blackrocks, Penny, used to lay very dark brown eggs. She stopped laying for 2 weeks and then when she started laying again, the eggs are now white!!! Didn't realise this could happen either!!!
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The shell colour is just a pigment added on teh outside of the egg and will wash off particularly teh dark brown layers like Welsummers. As others have said chx eggs can change colour due to al sorts of reasons including an infection.
HF
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Last winter, I noticed that the egg shells tended to get slightly darker in colder weather.
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I agree with all the above, and have noticed as a general rule, the pullet eggs are the richest in colour, and they gradually get larger and paler each laying season. My old legbars lay really big, pale ice blue eggs, but their daughters, lay bright blue, smaller eggs (when they can be bothered!). 1 of the oldies is STILL laying one egg every day, and has done since Feb. She is 3 1/2 so thats good going eh? Bless her.
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I agree with all the above, and have noticed as a general rule, the pullet eggs are the richest in colour, and they gradually get larger and paler each laying season. My old legbars lay really big, pale ice blue eggs, but their daughters, lay bright blue, smaller eggs (when they can be bothered!). 1 of the oldies is STILL laying one egg every day, and has done since Feb. She is 3 1/2 so thats good going eh? Bless her.
Well maybe they coat each egg with a specific amountof pigment and so the larger eggs have to have a thinner coating ::)
3& 1/2 and still laying one a day into winter is very good going Teapots. Mine went into moult and stopped laying 3 weeks or so ago.
HF
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I have collected these eggs, and am going to incubate them, hoping that any resultant pullets will be as prolific as their mummy :D