Egg color decreasing

I have had two customers tell me that some Ameraucana's they hatched from me are laying well and now the egg color is fading. They started out a nice blue color and now they are getting so light they are almost white. They are wondering if it is something that is lacking in their diet, or is it just the genetics? They were hatched in April this year, so only been laying for 1-2 months. The other customer said her hen which she got as a young pullet from me last year started to lay lighter eggs this fall.
I know from my own birds the first year are nice blue, and the second and on are very light in color, I always figured it was an age thing, but with the young pullets eggs fading already I am now not sure.
Any advice?

Which Am variety Hidden? I know the silvers I have lay very pale blue eggs, (not sure if it improves after a moult as they haven't started laying again) where as the blacks, blues and splashes lay a deeper hue of bluish green. I prefer the deeper colour myself. But with less green and more blue. My older girls lay darkest at the beginning of their cycle and well the colour does fade a bit by the end, it's still visibly blue/green and definitely not white. These are 3 year old hens too.  The pullets I hatched this year haven't started laying yet, but I will let you know what the colour is like when they do.

I know egg colour is something that can be selected for, so I would hazard a guess and say genetics are definitely at play. But some do think diet has an effect as well.

http://ameraucana.org/forum/index.php?topic=868.msg5361#msg5361

http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=32048

http://ameraucana.org/forum/index.php?topic=1239.0

I plan to follow coop's advice and only use cocks hatched from the bluest of eggs in my breeding program (when I'm not as focused on building the barn that is.  ) Wish I had more info for you...I hope others will comment as well. This is a very interesting topic.

This is interesting. I have found it as well with the pure Ams I had for a little while. The older, I think she is 3 now, Black Am hen I have still lays a good coloured egg. The crosses I have are still pullets (and stopped laying now because of the move) but I will keep an eye on them. I know the blue egg layers I had in Australia kept the same colour all year round. I was told down there that the egg colour should not vary like the dark eggs do, but it does seem to happen here. Very interesting indeed.

My ams are in the second season of laying and have just started up laying the same colour of nice blue as they did just before stoping to take a molt break....I have not seen any change in my egg color, other than my own perceptions of the blue eggs kinda being Normal to me and not as much of a novelty anymore. Sometimes I forget, until someone tells me thier kids all took a blue eggs and packed it around for days like a baby....then I am reminded it is special again. I try to have atleast one blue egg in my egg cartons.

This is a really interesting topic. I certainly don't have a full understanding of how the blue pigment works, but from what I've gathered blue eggs are made using a bile pigment so could blue egg colour be improved by improving liver function?

One question I have is how much risk there would be of harming egg production when improving egg colour through breeding. My minimal experience with Marans tells me that the best chocolate egg layers are often the worst layers in the coop. I would assume if you're careful it would be possible to breed birds that still lay well and are better at producing blue pigment at the same time.

As for your pullets specifically, my own birds lay paler eggs in general now that green feed is generally lacking, I'm talking . I never look at shell colour much but I've scanned a couple of articles suggesting a connection between yolk and blue shell colour. Maybe try some alfalfa pellets or kale and see what happens?

Thanks everyone. I am at the moment having an all our molt fest here....over 50 hens and getting 12 eggs at most a day! I am trying everything to kick start them, so maybe when everyone starts up again, or my pullets start (hopefully soon) I will see what my breeder egg color looks like. I was going to soak some alfalfa cubes we have and offer it to the hens to see if they are striking because of lack of greens...
I am not sure what the lady that emailed me about the pullets is feeding them, she lives up North right now and her parents are taking care of the birds, so not much information available from her, so will work with my birds and go from there.
Flicker it is the Wheaton variety that I am concerned about and that this other lady has, the blues/blacks lay my darkest eggs with my Lavenders (which I don't have any more unfortunately) laying the darkest.
So what I wonder with my other varieties laying dark eggs, maybe it really is a genetic thing in the wheatons?