egg color

[Guest]

I am sure that this has been gone over before however I am new to this and I have found searching this forum is not very user friendly.

I was told supposedly by another Ameraucana breeder that as it gets later in the season the Ameraucana eggs tend to get lighter in color. Is this true?

Also, was wondering as a hen gets older does she tend to loose the blue tinting to her eggs? In otherwords do her eggs get dark (i.e an Olive Green color)?

I recently bought some eggs off of ovabid and when I got the eggs was very disappointed in the egg color. I made sure to ask all the right questions (or so I thought). The person that was selling the eggs on ovabid told me they have been refining their flock for the past 12 years. The colored eggs I got were olive green and only 1 light blue egg. Needless to say I was very disappointed and am now thinking these eggs she/he sent me were EE\'s and not True Ameraucanas. I won\'t make that mistake again. This is what they had to say about their eggs \"They have gotten darker over the years by only hatching the darkest greens to add back to our flock\" Why would anyone want that nasty dark green egg color. I personally think the blue color is much prettier.

I know Ameraucana\'s are suppose to lay blue eggs, but it appears a lot of them have more of a blue-blue green egg color. Do many true Ameraucana\'s lay the blue/blue-green egg color? And am assuming you take the bluest of those and hatch those out.

Thanks
Kim

[Guest]

Kim,

What people say and what people do are two different things. I worked on egg color for six years and decided to switch my efforts to two other projects.  

The hen can add color to a shell in four different ways: no pigment added to a shell produces white, adding blue pigment to the shell, adding brown pigment to the shell (tinted eggs), or adding brown pigment on the outside of the shell.

I had pure blue eggs but the color was not dark enough to  suit me. An egg that is tinted brown (in the egg shell not surface brown) will be darker than a white egg that has the blue added to the shell.  

It has been my experience that as a bird gets older the color of the egg decreases.

Get some birds from individuals on this forum.

Tim

[Paul]

Yes, Ameraucana\'s eggs will get lighter as they lay.  Usually after they molt, they will lay good colored eggs again, if they laid good colored eggs as a pullet.  An Ameraucana stores her egg coloring agent in her comb, face, ear lobes, wattles (if she has them), shanks and feet.  Once she depletes her supply her eggs will be very light colored if not white.  The correct color is sky blue.

[bantamhill]

Kim,

I have not experienced over-all egg shell color becoming greener over the laying season from those birds that lay greenish eggs . . . as Paul stated it just becomes lighter.

As Ameraucana have been standardized the breeders have chosen to focus on type. In the last few years there has been a renewed focus on egg shell color and progress is being made. The new egg shell color chart really helps members to communicate the shell color of eggs. The standards call for sky blue . . . which has a lot of interperations!

To share a related situation I was able to aquire a small closed flock of Araucana bantams last year. The Araucana are rumpless and lay a wonderful light sky blue egg, but the type is terrible. I have aquired since a three Araucana pullets with tufts and very good type. Unfortunately two of the pullets lay an egg with a green shell color . . . obviously type/color was more important for the breeder of the two pullets than egg shell color.

In my experience the silver LF Ameraucana have the best sky blue egg color and in bantam silver, white, and wheaten have the best egg color. That being said, I think egg shell color is line and flock specific. So my recommendation is to decide what variety and size of Ameraucana you want to start with. Find a few possible sources and request egg shell samples or use the egg shell color chart to communicate with the breeder to see if the egg shell color is close to something you are interested in.

Michael

[Guest]

I have found that the color varies, just slightly, from day to day which I assume to be based on nutrition.
Maybe the breeder was colorblind or works for the Army? ha-ha. I prefer the shades in the turquois, as they are more \"saturated\". Can\'t wait for my color chart!

[bantamhill]

Rose,

Your color chart is with your spring bulletin . . . you should receive it in the next few days.

Michael

[Guest]

Yippeee! (Thanks for the heads-up. Maybe I should change tactics and leave Girl Scout cookies for my delivery person, ha!)

[Guest]

My first Ameraucanas came from John Blehm (black, blue, white & silver)  The silvers from JB had the best color.  By and by I cut back to just blacks and blues because I only had one breeding pen do I figured I could have 2 colors in one pen.  Anyway...some of the blacks and blues lay a pale blue egg but most lay a pale green egg which I feel is due to the brown egg laying breeds in their back ground.  
I\'m now wanting to get Silvers again.

This pic shows my silvers nice blue eggs along with the olive green to green eggs from the blacks.

[Guest]

Opps...try again....