If you’re into homesteading and hobby farming, you’ve probably seen photos of egg baskets overflowing with multicolored eggs. You might be tempted to start your own flock of backyard chickens after seeing these colorful eggs, but do you know which breeds produce them?
Some popular chicken breeds produce unusually colored eggs, including blue, green, dark brown, and even pink. When you add these hens to your flock, gathering eggs will become a fun activity.
If you’re jealous of all those baskets filled with colorful chicken eggs, check out our list of chicken breeds that lay colored eggs.
Polish
This breed is a favorite in the backyard, and for good reason. Their funky and stylish feathers make them stand out from the rest of your flock. Polish chickens come in many different colors, and each one has a beautiful tuft of feathers on top of its head.
This breed is well-known for being calm, friendly, and quiet. Families with small children or people who just want cuddly chickens will find them to be the perfect pets. Every week, Polish chickens lay two to four white eggs.
Australorp
Australorps are one of our favorite breeds, and for good reason! They get along well with people and other chickens, can handle the cold, and lay beautiful cream-colored eggs.
Australorps are also a beautiful breed of bird. When the sun shines on their black feathers, you can see glints of green, blue, and red.
Dark Brown Egg Laying Chickens
Most eggs are brown, but dark, chocolate-colored brown eggs are hard to find, and they add a nice touch of color to your egg basket. The following breeds lay eggs that are rich and dark brown.
Barnevelder
The Barnevelder is a well-liked breed because it is calm and friendly. They are great with kids and make great pets that are also good for you. The best thing about these chickens is that they lay deep, dark brown eggs that will make your egg basket look more interesting.
Marans
Marans come in nine different colors, and their eggs are different shades of brown. Because they are friendly and easy to take care of, this breed is often found in backyard flocks.
The Black Copper Marans are the most well-known Marans. Their beautiful chocolate brown eggs make them very popular. This breed is one of the most expensive, and when hatcheries start selling them in the spring, they usually sell out within a few days.
If you want to add Black Copper Marans to your flock, make sure to keep a close eye on your favorite hatcheries and be there the day they go on sale.
Welsummer
The Welsummer lays beautiful, spotted, deep reddish-brown eggs. These eggs really make your egg basket stand out.
The Welsummer lays approximately 200 eggs per year, is an excellent forager, and is quite docile. The only real problem with this breed is that they can be loud, which means they might not be the best choice for chicken flocks in cities or suburbs.
Araucana
Araucana chickens are hard to find because they are a rare breed. If you want to add Araucana chickens to your flock, your best bet is to contact a breeder who specializes in this breed, since most hatcheries don’t carry them.
The Ameraucana and Easter Egger breeds were made from the Araucana, which was the first chicken to lay blue eggs. This breed is interesting because it doesn’t have a rump, or tail feathers. Instead, it stands up straight, which is typical of this breed.
Araucanas also have cute feather tufts growing out from under their ears, which is a very rare trait in chickens.
Ameraucana
The Ameraucana is a lot like the Araucana, but it is much easier to find. This breed is like the Araucana in that it lays beautiful blue eggs and makes about 3–4 per week.
Ameraucanas are great at laying eggs, and their eggs are very pretty, but they aren’t known for being the friendliest birds. This breed is often flighty and doesn’t like to be touched. They can also be very loud.
Cream Legbar
Cream Legbar chickens lay gorgeous blue eggs. Not only are their eggs beautiful, but so are the birds themselves. If you add these beautiful birds to your flock, you’ll not only get a great variety of eggs, but your barnyard will also look great.
Cream Legbars are known for being self-sufficient and friendly. They like to roam around and don’t do well when they can’t. If you only want to order female chicks, this breed is a good choice because it’s easy to tell what gender they are when they hatch.
Isbar
The Isbar is a fairly new breed that was brought over from Sweden. It is pronounced “ice-bar.” This rare breed lays beautiful moss-green eggs, but sometimes they also lay brown eggs with spots on them.
Isbars can handle the cold and are great at finding food, so they are perfect for a free-range flock. This beautiful breed is great for any climate or family, but it may be hard to find because most hatcheries don’t sell them. If you want to add Isbars to your flock, you should find a breeder who specializes in them.
Ice Cream Bar
The Isbar and the Cream Legbars were crossed to make this new breed of chicken, which lays beautiful green-blue eggs. The Ice Cream Bar is known for being calm and lays about 200 eggs a year, which is a good amount.
Only a few farms sell these chicks and fertilized eggs because they are a very new hybrid breed.
Olive Egger
The Olive Egger is a mixed breed, like the Easter Egger. It is usually made by crossing Ameraucana chickens with Marans. This crossbreed hen lays the most beautiful olive-green eggs.
Because Olive Eggers can be made from a variety of different breeds, their personalities may not be clear until they are fully grown. Most people who keep Olive Eggers find that they are friendly, and this can be helped by handling the chicks a lot when they are young.
Favaucana
The Faverolle, which lays brown eggs, was crossed with the Ameraucana, which lays blue eggs, to make the Favaucana. The resulting chicken has green eggs.
Favaucanas are a new breed that is not yet officially recognized. They are also sometimes grouped with the Easter Egger Breed, which we’ll talk about next.
Favaucanas are good at laying eggs, do well in a wide range of climates, and are known for being friendly.
Easter Egger
If you want to add a rainbow of colors to your egg basket, Easter Eggers are a great choice. They are a mixed breed, made by breeding together several different kinds of egg-laying chickens with different colors.
This breed is a great addition to your backyard flock, even though it isn’t officially recognized and can’t be displayed shows.
Easter Eggers lay more than 200 eggs a year, which is a lot. Each chicken will lay an egg of a different color, like blue, green, or even pink. You won’t get different-colored eggs from a single Easter Egger chicken, but if you get more than one, they’ll give you eggs in a wide range of beautiful colors.
Silkie
The Silkie is a popular breed of chicken that lays small, white eggs. These eggs are about half as big as normal chicken eggs, but they taste just as good.
Silkies are known for being calm and friendly. They make great pets and do well in all kinds of weather. Silkies also often get broody and are great mothers, so if you want to hatch some chicks in the future, this is a great breed to get.
Leghorn
The Leghorn is known for being one of the most productive layer chickens. Most of the time, this breed is used on large farms that make a lot of eggs, but they do very well in small flocks as well.
The leghorn is small but strong. Each year, it lays about 280 bright white eggs. This breed is known for being skittish and flighty, so it might not be the best choice for families or people looking for pets. However, if you want white eggs every time, the Leghorn is the way to go.
Where to buy chickens that lay colored eggs
You can add to your chicken flock in a lot of different ways. Early in the spring, most farm stores sell chicks, and most of them put a schedule on their website of which breeds will be available and when.
You could also buy fertilized eggs and bring the chicks to life yourself. This is a fun project for the whole family, and raising your chicks from tiny eggs to full-grown hens is almost the most satisfying thing you can do.
You can buy fertilized eggs from local farms, on eBay, or on Craigslist. If you can, buying eggs from local farms is best, so you don’t have to worry about the eggs getting broken during shipping.
Buying from an online hatchery is by far the most popular way to add colored egg breeds to your flock. People know that these hatcheries have a huge range of breeds and can ship day-old chicks almost anywhere in just a few days.
