Have you ever wondered what breeds of chickens will lay a colorful rainbow of eggs? We’ve been slowly growing our flocks of chickens over the years specifically so we can have hens who lay a rainbow of colorful eggs. I absolutely love collecting our chickens’ eggs everyday and seeing our egg basket overflowing with the gorgeous rainbow of colored eggs! Read on to learn the breeds of chickens that will lay a rainbow of colorful eggs for your egg basket.
(I’ve been asked about our wood egg basket so here’s where you can find them.)
I grew up in farm country where large chicken farms mass produced white eggs from Leghorn chickens, the egg laying machines of the chicken industry. As a kid, I never knew that eggs could be colorful. We always had white eggs, on rare occasions maybe a brown egg.
It wasn’t until years later when I was in my twenties that I saw an egg carton filled with blue eggs at the local farmers market. I was so amazed!
Once I started raising chickens in 2014, I began my obsession with raising the most unique colored eggs we could find. Over the years we have grown our flock of chickens so we now have a lovely rainbow of colorful eggs we collect from our chicken coops everyday.
What breeds of chickens lay a colorful rainbow of eggs?
There are very specific chicken breeds that lay the different colored eggs for a rainbow of eggs. I’m going to break the rainbow of colorful chicken eggs down into each specific color and which breeds lay that color of egg.
What chickens lay cream colored eggs?
Wyandottes are the most common chickens that lay a cream colored egg. We currently have two Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hens, one who even lays a pretty pink hued cream colored egg. We’ve also raised black laced Wyandottes and a golden laced Wyandotte.
Our main egg layers of cream colored eggs are our unique Swedish Flower hens. They lay a medium size cream colored egg.
Silkie chickens also lay cream colored eggs, although this is not a breed we have experience with since we prefer larger dual purpose sized chickens.
What chickens lay brown eggs?
There are variations in the shades of brown chicken eggs from light to ultra dark chocolate brown. Chickens that lay a light to medium shade of brown egg are Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, Australorp and Orpingtons.
We’ve raised all of these breeds of chickens over the years and they have all been hardy, brown egg laying chickens.
What chickens lay dark chocolate brown eggs?
The darkest brown egg layers are Maran chickens. Black Copper Maran are well known as the chickens that lay the darkest shades of brown. We have a breeding flock of Black Copper Maran chickens and the eggs from the hens are a gorgeous dark brown.
We also have Cuckoo Maran hens who lay a pretty dark brown egg, although not quite as dark as the Black Coppers.
Welsummer is another chicken breed that lays a dark brown egg. In my experience, their eggs aren’t quite as dark brown as Maran hens but darker than some of the other brown egg laying chickens.
What chickens lay blue eggs?
Blue eggs were the first unusual colored eggs I ever saw years ago. I was so amazed that there could be a blue chicken egg! Since then, we’ve raised several blue egg laying hens and they are always my favorite colors in our rainbow egg basket.
Chicken breeds that lay blue colored eggs are commonly called “Easter Eggers”, but there are actually three different breeds of blue egg laying chickens.
Often the blue egg laying chickens at the feed store are called “Easter Eggers”. Easter Eggers are not considered pure bred chickens, although they usually lay pretty blue eggs.
The true pure bred chicken breeds that lay blue eggs are Araucanas and Ameraucanas. If you’re curious to read more about the differences between the three blue egg laying chicken breeds, here’s a helpful article at the Chicken Chick.
What chickens lay green eggs?
Green chicken eggs are commonly called “Olive Eggers” . Olive Eggers are a cross between a blue egg layer and a brown egg layer. We currently have a breeding flock of Olive Eggers. These hens were bred two years ago from our Cuckoo Maran rooster, Francois, and our two Easter Egger hens, Hazel and Ginger.
This year our Olive Egger hens are crossed with our Black Copper Maran rooster, Rudolph. We currently have these eggs in our incubator with chicks expected to hatch next week so we can’t wait to see what color eggs they will eventually lay! (Here’s how to hatch chicks in an incubator if you want to give it a try!)
How do you spell Marans? Marans is singular and plural for this breed of chicken.