Fancy chicken breeds and their colourful eggs
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Before we started keeping backyard chickens we were highly excited about the different coloured eggs that different fancy breeds of hens would lay. We thought that it would be amazing to have 6 hens, and have each one lay a different colour egg - so our ½ doz box a day would look so pretty and colourful.
We turned to the internet to find out which fancy hens would give us a wide range of egg colours, shortlisted 6 varieties that would lay us a rainbow omelette, and trundled off to a remote mountain in Wales to meet with a specialist breeder. Sure enough, the breeder had the hens we were looking for, plus many many more varieties to choose from - such variation, such potential to have different coloured eggs! We were overjoyed! The varieties of hen we chose were: |
Warren chickens
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However, we soon learned that egg colour makes absolutely no difference to the taste of the egg. After you have collected eggs day in, day out for a few weeks the novelty of varying egg shell colour wears off.
Over time, we noticed the fancies would lay a pretty egg every so often - but not nearly as many eggs as we had hoped for and nowhere nearly as often as those brown hens that our neighbours had.
Although all hens lived in peace and harmony, we noticed that they were highly susceptible to mites and prone to dropping dead with no identifiable reason which made us, novice chicken keepers at the time, very sad. They were well looked after and protected from the predators so we can only put this down to either weak genetics (who knows what ingenuity it takes to create a fancy breed), or the fancy breeds just not being hardy enough to survive.
Since having our fancy breeds, we have gained more residents for the hen house - this time, we have opted for the humble warren, the standard commercial brown battery layer. The warren never fails to disappoint, we have been having an egg a day constantly (apart from last month when they all went on strike for a week), we have seen no sign of mites and they are all super healthy!
So, does the colour of an egg matter? My view is that an egg is an egg, and the warren really is a hardy egg production machine, suitable for any British homestead!
What are you experiences of keeping chickens?
Do you have any questions about keeping chickens?
Leave us a comment below!
Over time, we noticed the fancies would lay a pretty egg every so often - but not nearly as many eggs as we had hoped for and nowhere nearly as often as those brown hens that our neighbours had.
Although all hens lived in peace and harmony, we noticed that they were highly susceptible to mites and prone to dropping dead with no identifiable reason which made us, novice chicken keepers at the time, very sad. They were well looked after and protected from the predators so we can only put this down to either weak genetics (who knows what ingenuity it takes to create a fancy breed), or the fancy breeds just not being hardy enough to survive.
Since having our fancy breeds, we have gained more residents for the hen house - this time, we have opted for the humble warren, the standard commercial brown battery layer. The warren never fails to disappoint, we have been having an egg a day constantly (apart from last month when they all went on strike for a week), we have seen no sign of mites and they are all super healthy!
So, does the colour of an egg matter? My view is that an egg is an egg, and the warren really is a hardy egg production machine, suitable for any British homestead!
What are you experiences of keeping chickens?
Do you have any questions about keeping chickens?
Leave us a comment below!
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