Rainbow eggs | Hens that lay coloured eggs

If you are searching for hens that lay coloured eggs, you’ll find that many specialist breeders and poultry hatcheries offer a wide selection of these unique and vibrant egg-laying breeds.

Good breeders focus on high-quality, healthy birds, ensuring you can find the perfect hens to add both beauty and variety to your egg basket.

Whether you are looking for blue, olive green, dark brown, or even pinkish eggs, there are a variety of birds who'll lay them.

We asked our resident "eggspert", poultry breeder and Verm-X Ambassador Claudia from Bury Green Poultry to tell us more.

Rainbow eggs - magical must-haves

A selection of rainbow eggs from Bury Green Poultry’s hens

What are rainbow eggs? 

Rainbow eggs are multiple eggs which have different coloured shells to each other, like in the photo above. They’re laid by different breeds of hens, one breed of hen doesn’t lay different coloured eggs, she will lay the same coloured egg for her whole laying life, although the shade may differ as she ages or when temperatures change. 

What causes the different colours?

Pigmentation is what causes eggs to be different colours, for example; a Maran's egg is dark brown but it actually starts off as white until the brown pigmentation is layered onto the shell. With blue eggs, the colour permeates the shell (inside and out), whereas the Marans eggs are coloured externally which means if you scratch the eggshell, you’ll be able to see the white shell underneath. Clever, huh?! 

In blue eggs, the colour is created by oocyanin which is applied very early in the laying process, hence being blue on the inside as well as the outside, and in brown eggs, a dark pigment called porphyrin is deposited onto the shell in the final hours of egg formation within the hen’s shell gland, so these eggs are white on the inside but brown on the outside.

The bloom 

The bloom, which is also known as the cuticle, is a protective coating on the eggshell that’s deposited just before the egg is laid. Its purpose is to prevent bacteria from entering the egg and reduce moisture loss to keep the egg fresher for longer.

If eggs are washed, the bloom is removed so those eggs must be refrigerated, unwashed eggs however, can be stored at room temperature. You’ll see in the photo above I have made one part of the eggshell wet to show you what the egg would look like without the bloom.

The bloom can vary in thickness and make eggs look a slightly different colour to normal, for example, a thick bloom on a blue egg may appear grey and a thick bloom on a brown egg may appear purplish.

The bloom can also give a shiny or matte finish to the eggshells - see the photo of two Marans eggs above, one is matte and one is shiny.

What breeds lay what colour eggs?

Blue eggs: Cream Legbars & Araucanas

Dark brown eggs: Black Copper Marans, Welsummers

Pink/beige/cream/light brown: Sussex, Ayam Cemani, Rhode Island Red, Orpingtons, Swedish Flower Hen, Plymouth Rock White: Leghorns, Lakenvelders

What hens lay green eggs?

Green: Olive Egger (crossbreed)

How are Olive Eggers created?

Olive eggs are laid by hens who have been produced by crossing breeds that carry the blue egg gene and the dark brown egg gene, for example, this is how I bred my Olive Eggers:

I started by breeding my Cream Legbar hens with my Black Copper Marans cockerel, their offspring laid green eggs. I then bred those hens I’d hatched to another Black Copper Marans cockerel, their offspring laid olive eggs.

Finally, I bred the hens I’d hatched from them to another Black Copper Marans cockerel and their offspring laid very dark, chocolatey olive eggs - a fun project and so worth it, the eggs are B-E-A-UTIFUL!!

The above is a small selection of pure breeds that produce the specified coloured eggs, there are plenty of hybrids (crossbreeds) that lay different coloured eggs and these are normally bred as prolific egg layers, producing more eggs than pure breeds annually. 

Bury Green Poultry provides a number of rainbow hybrids such as:

• Devon Blue (blue eggs)
• Devon Bronze (dark brown eggs)
• Devon Olive (olive eggs)
• Devon Sage (light green eggs)
• Leghorn hybrid (white eggs)
• Columbian Blacktail (light brown eggs)

Do rainbow eggs taste different?

Nope! The diet the hens are fed determines the flavour of her eggs, not the eggshell colour, though French chefs believe that Maran's eggs are richer in flavour (I think they’re biased as Marans come from France!).

Thank you once again to Claudia, you can follow her account on Instagram to learn more about her flock.