Chicken that lay green eggs are an interesting breed, and the process of making these green eggs is just as impressive as the breeds that produce these emerald stunners
Many people ignore eggshells since it is the content of the egg that is most important to them. They only eat the albumin and the yolk of the egg and waste the eggshell.
Nonetheless, it is worth paying attention to the eggshells of your hen’s eggs since they use a lot of calcium so as to make them hard, shiny, strong, and, in some instances, colorful.
The most popular color is white, but some hens lay colored eggs. There is a wide range of variations in the color of eggshells. More elaborate eggshell colors include green, olive, blue, pink, chocolate, dark brown, and gold.
If you have come across strangely-colored eggs, you have perhaps wondered what kind of chicken lay them. Apart from looking at the four unique chickens that lay green eggs, this article will answer questions you may have about chickens that lay green eggs.
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How Do Colored Chicken Eggs Come About?
Before we look at chickens that lay green eggs, let’s look at the reason behind eggshell pigmentation. As stated earlier, white is the predominant color of chicken eggshells. Are you aware that blue is the original color of chicken eggs?
The color in chicken eggshells is the pigment that the chicken secretes when the egg is still in the oviduct.
The process of egg formation begins off with white-colored shells and as it passes through the oviduct, a pigment called oocyanin, secreted by the glands, penetrates the eggshell. This pigment colors the outer shell blue and stains the eggshell’s interior.
With brown-colored eggshells, the oviduct secretes a pigment called protoporphyrin. This happens later and only alters the exterior color of the eggshell. The pigments that the oviduct secretes will vary from one species to another. This is the reason why chickens lay eggs of different colors.
How Do Green Colored Egg Shells Come About?
Some chicken species secrete layers of pigments that produce different colors of eggshells. In the case of green eggs, their original color is brown. This color is overlaid by a blue pigment which is green or olive in color.
The protoporphyrin pigment is overridden by the oocyanin pigment in the case of green eggs. The darker the protoporphyrin pigment, the darker green the eggshell will be.
Four Types of Chicken That Lay Green Eggs
1. Olive Eggers
Olive egger chickens are a type of easter egger chicken that has been particularly crossed to attain dark olive-colored eggs with a green appearance. They produce blue eggs that are masked by a layer of brown tint which makes the egg appear green in color.
2. Isbar
This is one of the pure breeds of chicken species that lays green eggs. It was developed in Sweden, mainly due to its different colored eggs, although it mostly lays green-colored eggs.
The standard color of the eggshells of eggs laid by this chicken is green, but it sometimes lays eggs with brown spots because of the lack of sufficient overlaying of the blue pigment.
Another interesting fact about this breed is that you can easily differentiate a male from a female at the time of hatching. This is called auto-sexing. This is a rare breed and is not available in all countries.
3. Favaucana
The favaucana chicken is a crossbreed between Ameraucana and Faverolles. This chicken has been programmed genetically to produce green eggs.
The ameraucana chicken produces blue-colored eggs while the faverolles chicken lays light brown colored eggs. You can crossbreed these two chickens to get a Favaucana chicken, as long as you take certain measures. The favaucana chicken is a breed of the easter egger.
4. Easter Egger (Some)
The Easter Egger chicken is not regarded as an actual breed of chicken. This is because several chickens are crossbred to get this species. These crossbred chickens lay eggs with brown and blue layers, resulting in medium-sized green-colored eggs.
I hope this article has answered the many questions you had about chickens that lay green eggs and how that comes about.
