Influencing eggshell colour?

I’ve been thinking about some of the things I’ve recently read about, like how feeding certain things, like corn, can bring out the yellow in chicken’s legs or cause discolouration in certain breeds feathers.

Now I know blue-green eggs become lighter as a hen’s laying cycle progresses because she starts to run low on the pigment that produces the colour. This is normal. Now I got to wondering is there any way to combat this by adding the necessary nutrients to the chicken’s diet to help replenish the pigment? Has anyone ever done this? Or is it even possible? What is the pigment made of anyway?

FC, any of my experience with this has been with the dark egg layers, so I will talk about that. I think with the blue eggs there may be some similarities, but remember the inside shell colour should be a strong blue and that will help maintain the colour through the year.

Dark brown layers are influenced by the cock bird that produces the pullets. It is important to make a note of the darkest eggs and keep a cockerel from that batch for the next year. This helps improve the egg colour in the pullets for the year after that. I was always very careful to only keep a cockerel from a dark egg hatch every year and I was able to improve my egg colour greatly in a very short period of time.

I am not sure if it is the same with the blue eggs, but you know I will be trying this method with them, so ask again in a couple of years!

Diet certainly has an effect on the dark layers. The right diet can change a speckled egg, to a nicely colour dark egg by helping the hen to more evenly distribute the colour over the egg. This is were it gets a bit cloudy for me as my coloured layers before this had green eggs and not the true blue. I am not sure how much blue is in shell and how much is deposited over the egg like brown is.

My personal thoughts on it are that you can influence colour of egg with diet. Just how much and what the best method is I do not know. You would need to experiment a bit with it.

I think I have managed to post a long post and answer NONE of the questions you asked!

Blue egg colour is governed by a single gene, while brown is influenced by at least 12 or 13 different genes, some of large effect, and some of small. Parents have approximately equal effect on eggshell colour of female progeny (I say approximately, as it is possible some brown genes are carried on the Z chromosome) - choosing a male that hatched from a good dark shell is (as Coopslave says) probably the quickest way to darken colour.

Blue egg colour is distributed evenly throughout the shell, while brown is partially within the shell and (especially in the darker eggs) partially a thin veneer that can be scraped off. This is why, when you cross a blue and a brown egg breed, you get eggs that are quite blue on the inside, but can be a dark olive green on the outside (a lovely contrast, IMO).

The chemical responsible for brown egg colour is protoporphyrin, an intermediate in heme synthesis. "Protoporphyrins strengthen the egg shell, and are deposited where the shell is too thin as a result of calcium shortage. Spotting therefore tend to be heavier where the local soil is calcium-deficient, and in the eggs laid last in a clutch."

The blue egg chemical is biliverdin, a breakdown product of hemoglobin. "biliverdin of egg shells is produced from the shell gland, rather than from the breakdown of erythrocytes in the blood stream." I don't think diet will influence blue intensity, but that's just my opinion, and may well be wrong.

Just a comment on the dark shell colouring. I've heard of a woman in the States who raises top notch dark shell laying Marans. Apparently she looks for darker colouring across the roosters back. Don't know how accurate this is but perhaps she has found some sort of genetic link in her birds.

A sure-fire way to intensify pigment is called "Photoshop".

Sue

Schipperkesue wrote:A sure-fire way to intensify pigment is called "Photoshop".

Sue

Very, very naughty Sue!!!

Schipperkesue wrote:A sure-fire way to intensify pigment is called "Photoshop".

Sue

Good Lord! You're right!

Any chance that I can just enter a picture of my birds into shows? I might win some ribbons that way.

LoL Sue. Not exactly what I had in mind.


Coopslave: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I will definitely be trying your method (of choosing males from the bluest eggs) when selecting my future breeding cocks. Unfortunately I didn’t think to note eggshell colour for any of my current young prospects. I’m very interested to hear how things progress for you.


Ipf: Thank you for the detailed explanation. I’m not going to pretend I understood all the terms used, but it was fascinating all the same.
From what I’ve gathered, diet won’t be much of a help then. I’d really love to have Ameraucana’s that lay true blue eggs without the green tint. I was considering eventually out crossing with the Araucana as a means to this end, but haven’t seriously considered all the repercussions of such a venture. I don’t want tufts and/or rumplessness to be deeply imbedded in my future generations. Though I guess that’s the point of heavy culling, isn’t it…sorry, got typing out loud there. Thanks again.


Haha Fowler. The new grand champion is… wait, is that a seagull?

The good thing about ear tufts and rumplessness (at least the Araucana kind), is that they are dominant. This means that if the bird has the gene, it will be expressed; a bird that doesn't show the trait doesn't carry the gene. So you don't have to worry about those particular traits going into hiding and showing up generations later. A lot easier to deal with than the sneaky recessives, or the multi-gene traits.

Didn't mean to get all tech-y on you in the last one; if you want bits explained please just say so.

One thing I meant to say, but forgot to, is that although blue egg colour is basically a single locus with O (blue) being dominant to o (non blue), there are, almost certainly, a number of modifier gene loci - genes of small effect that moderate the expression of the O allele.

O is very closely linked to the pea comb as well. So if you are looking to better your odds for an Easter Egger (crossbred) that lays green or blue eggs, always look for a pea comb!

That is very good news Ipf.

Funny enough, I’ve only hatched one Easter Egger without a pea comb and now her daughter this year as well. Their combs are hard to describe, mostly just flat skin with a little bump? (there is Cochin/Brahma blood from the grandmother in the mix) Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when the hen began laying olive eggs last fall, so I’m curious to see if the daughter will too. They look exactly alike other than the daughter doesn’t have partially feathered legs. (yay!)

Too bad a pea comb didn't mean homozygous for O/O. It'd be so much easier to get back to true blue.

Linkage between the pea comb locus and the blue egg locus is 95.7%; what this means is that if you cross an Ameraucana with a non-blue-egg bird with a single comb, and mate the offspring to more non-blue-egg bird(s) with single comb(s), and then hatch out 200 pullets, you should get approximately 96 pea-combed blue-egg-layers, 96 non-pea-combed non-blue-egg-layers, 4 pea-combed non-blue-egg-layers and 4 non-pea-combed blue-egg layers. (Of course actual numbers will vary, but should be close to that).

Whilst reading my old notes I also found the following, w.r.t. enhancing brown eggshell colour through diet:
"Within the past 3 years, scientists discovered that B.s. [Bacillus subtilis] C-3102 spores supplemented to laying hen diets can improve brown egg color of brown-egg strains usually within a matter of days. Typically, the initial darker brown colors of eggs produced by pullets gradually fade so that egg colors become lighter brown as hens age (Odabaşi et al., 2007)."
- and -
"Bacillus subtilis C-3102 spores are receiving increased attention as dietary direct-fed microbial (probiotic) performance enhancers for laying hens and breeders because as a feed supplement they typically are effective for improving egg shell thickness and brown egg shell color."

And to figure out if your bird is OO or Oo, just mate it to a known oo; and hatch out a bunch. If all the offspring pullets lay blue, you know the original bird was OO; if only 50%, then Oo. Hatching 7 pullets who all lay blue eggs leaves you >99% sure the mum (or dad) was OO.

Pea combs and the blue egg gene appear to be more closely linked than I first thought. Or maybe it’s finally sinking in now. LoL Thanks Ipf. I really enjoy reading deciphering your tech-y posts.

I am still planning to test mate my roosters, most likely with Leghorn hens. If I had better winter facilities I’d consider a fall hatch to get a head start. Ah well, I look forward to an early spring.

And that’s interesting about the brown eggshell colour. Whatever are Bacillus subtilis C-3102 spores?

Spores of a line of a Bacillus species, used as an additive in some commercial chook feeds, to improve feed conversion in broilers. It is sometimes used to replace low levels of antibiotics (almost certainly a good switch, IMO).

(yes, that is a tight linkage - 4.28 map units, where a map unit is defined as the distance between two loci that allows crossing over during meiosis 1% of the time)

Ooooh I love this genetic stuff, keep it comin`, it is so good to read, and so interestin`. Beautiful and wonderful days, CynthiaM.

Remember too that genetically a bird can carry one pea comb gene and present with a blade comb. A blade comb doesn`t quite look like a pea comb, but it doesn`t look anything like a single comb. This is enough, usually, to choose for a coloured egg.

Yes, I agree. I brought in the lavender gene to my araucanas from modern games. Moderns have a single comb. I have two lavender sisters, one with a tiny "sort of" pea comb. She lays blue. Her sister has a tiny single comb and lays cream. I mated the cream laying sister to an araucana( backcross) and some have pea combs, but will not have enough melanizers to make good lavenders later, too much red leakage. I mated the other to a good black roo, with a single comb and will be breeding from the sort of pea combed ones....mating them to their cousins from the araucana backcross. I am hoping for some clean lavenders with no red leakage, grin. The black roo is rumpless, all black with no red leakage, but his sisters all lay brown, and he hatched from a brown egg. About half from him have pea combs...and are likely to carry the blue egg gene from their mother.

You know, I think one of my EE’s has this blade comb. It looks like a pea comb, but with a small single comb rising from the middle. I’m undecided whether I have a roo or pullet and the funny comb is not helping. I’m going to take a few pictures and see if someone else might wanna give it a guess.

Neat project Jocelyn. I hope you get some clean chicks.

Well, next fall will tell the tale. I've got the little guys out in the bus now, waiting for them to grow up. The combs will be hard to tell in the hens, as they often have no combs till over a year old in the South American mixed race ones. Still, the hens will lay blue, so I'll just set the blue eggs. The trouble will come if the solid black line produces only hens and I have to pick a roo from the rest....at least the males grow some comb at the regular time.

ipf wrote:Spores of a line of a Bacillus species, used as an additive in some commercial chook feeds, to improve feed conversion in broilers. It is sometimes used to replace low levels of antibiotics (almost certainly a good switch, IMO).

(yes, that is a tight linkage - 4.28 map units, where a map unit is defined as the distance between two loci that allows crossing over during meiosis 1% of the time)

Sorry I'm jumping in here, but I was wondering about what feed makes commercial layers eggs so dark brown!

This spring I bought some new "ready to lay" Highland Browns. A few of them had just started laying those little pullet torpedo shaped eggs and they were a dark chalky brown. Just like the ones I've seen in the stores from the commercial farms. I should add that these new birds came from a commercial farm as well.

After a week or so, the little eggs started to loose that almost fake looking painted on colour and took on the normal home grown brown egg colour I'm used to seeing. I figured it was their diet, but I'm not sure exactly what part of their diet is.

Sooooo, my question is, what does a person feed them to change the colour back to that commercial brown colour if a person wanted? Because I don't know what "Spores of a line of a Bacillus species" is!!! Is that some kind of mushroom or something?!?!

This might help some other people to achieve that dark colour in the Maran eggs as well!

I keep a couple of hybrids just to have that steady supply when my heritage birds are taking a break. The last two I got (raised from chicks) are laying eggs as dark brown as my Marans. I've noticed the eggs in the stores are darker than they were just a couple of years ago too. I think it's the genetics in this case. They're always retooling their genetics on the commercial lines.

That's why I've started an experiment where I crossed them with my Maran rooster.

Dark Wing Duck wrote:

ipf wrote:Spores of a line of a Bacillus species, used as an additive in some commercial chook feeds, to improve feed conversion in broilers. It is sometimes used to replace low levels of antibiotics (almost certainly a good switch, IMO).

(yes, that is a tight linkage - 4.28 map units, where a map unit is defined as the distance between two loci that allows crossing over during meiosis 1% of the time)

Sorry I'm jumping in here, but I was wondering about what feed makes commercial layers eggs so dark brown!

This spring I bought some new "ready to lay" Highland Browns. A few of them had just started laying those little pullet torpedo shaped eggs and they were a dark chalky brown. Just like the ones I've seen in the stores from the commercial farms. I should add that these new birds came from a commercial farm as well.

After a week or so, the little eggs started to loose that almost fake looking painted on colour and took on the normal home grown brown egg colour I'm used to seeing. I figured it was their diet, but I'm not sure exactly what part of their diet is.

Sooooo, my question is, what does a person feed them to change the colour back to that commercial brown colour if a person wanted? Because I don't know what "Spores of a line of a Bacillus species" is!!! Is that some kind of mushroom or something?!?!

This might help some other people to achieve that dark colour in the Maran eggs as well!

Could it also be the age of the bird that changes egg color? I noticed the same thing with my Marans, but I had raised them myself from chicks with no change in food.

Sue

I agree with Fowler, I think it is the genetics they are using. The brown eggs you buy in the stores in Australia rivaled most dark layers in at country. They were more a matte colour though, not the shiny, smooth, glossy egg the Barnevelders down there laid.

Fowler, it will be interesting how you go crossing them with your Marans. I know the Marans that were developed in Australia (there were none there 5 years ago) some of those commercial, dark layers were used to help with egg colour and egg production.

As I already stated though, my birds are from a commercial farm! They were bred for commercial use. And, they started to lay eggs that were a different colour, but that only lasted for a few days. If it was a genetic thing, then they should still be laying that dark chalky commercial coloured egg! Wouldn't they?!?!?

Dark Wing Duck wrote:As I already stated though, my birds are from a commercial farm! They were bred for commercial use. And, they started to lay eggs that were a different colour, but that only lasted for a few days. If it was a genetic thing, then they should still be laying that dark chalky commercial coloured egg! Wouldn't they?!?!?

In her first year I had a Maran laying a 6 on the colour chart. Her second year she had slipped to a 5. I've seen Ameraucanas do it too.

But a few days? No idea.