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The Ins-and-Outs of Colored Eggs

Some of you may have only seen white and brown eggs. Some may know about blue, olive, chocolate, pink, tan and cream too. What most have never noticed though is the interior color of the eggs.

White Eggs:

ALL egg shells start out white. If Blue or Brown Pigment are never added they are laid as white eggs, inside and out.

Blue Eggs:

A blue eggshell is produced by the pigment biliverdin, which is produced in the bile and applied early in the laying process. Because the high doses of biliverdin are applied so early to the egg shell it seeps all the way through the shell. This creates a blue shell in and out.

Brown Eggs:

In the last 4-6 hours of the laying process (one egg takes roughly 20 hours) brown eggs 'turn' brown. The egg rotates while the color is being applied. If the egg rotates too slowly speckles will form (Speckles are my favorite!). Since this color is applied so late in the process, only the outside of the egg turns brown, cream or tan.

Olive Eggs:

Olive eggs are a recent fad in the chicken world and are rapidly gaining popularity. Olive eggs simple come from breeding a chocolate (dark brown) layer with blue layer. The offspring then apply both blue and brown pigments to the eggs. As we learned earlier these colors are not applied at the same time. Instead a white egg is turned blue (inside and out). Then the brown is applied to the outside of the egg, over the blue. The blue still shows through the brown coloring some creating a dark green type of color. The inside of the egg remains blue!

Spearmint Eggs:

Similar to the olive eggs except the parents are a blue layer and a tan layer. The tan is just a lighter application of brown. Spearmint eggs are a light green on the outside but still blue in the center.

Pink Eggs:

The pink eggs are very faint and are just caused by a discoloration of the bloom over a cream egg.

Chocolate Layers:

These are created by a genetically darker pigment of brown, applied to an egg for a longer amount of time. Most of these eggs have heavy speckling because the extensive and slow coloring process. No matter how dark these eggs are the inside is still white!

Tan and cream layers:

These are still brown eggs but just less pigment added so there is a lighter color added to the outside. The inside remains white.

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