# Egg Color Questions



## Shann0 (Sep 19, 2013)

This may be a silly question, but will a hen typically always lay the same color egg? Or close to the same color? One of my brown leghorns has been laying, she and her sister are the same age, about a month ahead of my other hens. One of them just recently started laying a light brown egg. Now the other day, I got a much darker brown egg, so I'm wondering if this was the sisters first egg, or if the color can change that much day to day? I usually only find one egg per day, so I was under the assumption that I still only have one laying hen.


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## Apyl (Jun 20, 2012)

If your egg color is that off from each other you have 2 layers. Typically the only color change will be for the dark egg layers. They lay darker at the beginning and lighten up with age.


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## Shann0 (Sep 19, 2013)

Ok great! Thank you so much for the reply. It had just kind of dawned on me today that maybe they were both actually laying, but not very frequently.


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## avis67 (Oct 27, 2013)

When laying an egg hens use color pigments that can come from the face, comb, earlobes, wattles, and legs. All hens will at least take a rest at laying for one day or longer to regain energy and color pigment, when they have used almost all of it their comb and face may look pale. The reason for why your hens are laying from dark to light eggs could be because of more or not enough color pigments, sometimes it's just the chicken.


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## Apyl (Jun 20, 2012)

avis67 said:


> When laying an egg hens use color pigments that can come from the face, comb, earlobes, wattles, and legs. All hens will at least take a rest at laying for one day or longer to regain energy and color pigment, when they have used almost all of it their comb and face may look pale. The reason for why your hens are laying from dark to light eggs could be because of more or not enough color pigments, sometimes it's just the chicken.


Just curious where you heard that info. Could you share a link I can't find any info regarding pigmention in the way you said. I would love to learn more about it, sounds interesting.


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## avis67 (Oct 27, 2013)

Apyl said:


> Just curious where you heard that info. Could you share a link I can't find any info regarding pigmention in the way you said. I would love to learn more about it, sounds interesting.


I some of it in Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow, I also read more on BackyardChickens.com. I can't seem to find the link sright now, but I'll post it when I do.


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