One thing about keeping chickens that I am completely amazed by is all the different colors of eggs!  I have a variety in my flock and my favorite are the blues and pinks.

This picture doesn’t do the blue egg justice but I assure you, it is a beautiful shade of baby blue.

These 3 eggs were laid by my Red Sex Link (a hybrid layer) my Buff Orpington laid the pink egg and my Lavender Ameraucana laid the blue egg.

*According to the Chicken Encyclopedia by Gail Damerow,* colored shells are the result of pigments added during shell formation.  Brown layers produce shades ranging from barely tinted to quite dark.  Most of the pigment of a brown shell egg is deposited in the bloom, the last layer added to the outside of an egg just before it is laid, leaving the inside pale or white.  The pigment of a blue shell egg is spread throughout the shell, which means it is just as blue on the inside as it is on the outside.  Green shells come from crossing a blue layer with a brown layer, resulting in blue shell eggs with a brown coating.  Interesting huh!

Some people believe that colored eggs taste different or have more or even less nutritional value than brown eggs.  THIS IS FALSE! The nutritional value of an egg has nothing to do with the color of the shell, but rather, what the chicken’s diet consists of.  So don’t be afraid to eat those beautiful colored eggs.