From the snow white eggs from a Leghorn to the deep browns of the Marans, find out which chicken breed produces which coloured eggs.
Well, you can’t quite make a rainbow, but with careful selection of breeds you can have some pretty beautiful baskets full of coloured chicken eggs from your own flock.
Here are our favourite breeds that combine fabulous coloured chicken eggs with breed personalities just as colourful!
Blue and green: Araucana
Some say they are flighty, but we find our hand-reared Araucanas to be inquisitive and funny, not to mention rather friendly (though they can fly, we find ours are not too adventurous). They lay a beautiful blue colour egg. The colour you get depends on the bird.
Pink: Faverolles
These plump, friendly chooks lay a beautiful salmon coloured eggs that really “pop” in the egg carton next to Araucana blues and Marans dark browns.
Dark brown: Marans
Placid and lovely Marans are available in Australia but they don’t lay quite as deep a chocolate brown eggs of their European forebears. However, they’re just about the darkest brown egg you’ll get in this country.
Light brown: Barnevelder
Friendly and funny, Barnevelders are a family favourite as a pet and chook companion. They lay deep brown eggs, often with speckle brown pigments, making them a lovely addition to the egg basket too.
Speckled light brown: Welsummer
Welsummers are a fairly easygoing breed who lay well and produce a beautiful speckle on their lighter shade eggs (much like their pretty, yet understated, plumage).
Pure white: Leghorn
Few non-commercial chooks rivals the Leghorn for laying prowess, and this alone is plenty enough reason to have one or two in your flock. Plus a few pure snow white eggs will complete your egg spectrum!
Want to know more about backyard chickens?
We’ve got loads of great content about keeping backyard chickens.
Issue #7 of Pip Magazine is our dedicated “chicken” issue, with articles on:
- How to keep your chicken flock healthy.
- A guide to the different backyard chicken breeds.
- Information on how to raise meat chickens.
- Plus, a troubleshooting guide, where we answer all of your questions and dilemmas around backyard chickens.
You can access these articles online here as part of our digital subscription offering.
Also check out our article on designing chickens into the vegie garden from Issue #6 of Pip here.
And don’t forget we have loads of chicken-related content online, including these articles:
