Which Chickens Lay Blue Eggs?

Chickens that lay blue eggs all carry a blue egg gene, and only a few breeds carry it reliably. Ameraucanas, Araucanas, and Cream Legbars are the purebred blue layers, and Easter Eggers bring the gene to backyard flocks in shades of blue and green.

The blue in a blue egg isn’t a coating. The color goes all the way through the shell, so a blue egg is still blue on the inside when you crack it.

That makes blue different from every other egg color. Brown eggs and pink eggs are white shells with color on the outside, and green eggs are blue shells with brown on top.

Blue egg layers are also the starting point for green eggs. Cross a blue egg hen with a brown egg rooster, and you’ll get olive egger chickens that lay green eggs.

If you’re building a rainbow basket, my guide to chicken egg colors covers every shade, including white eggs and dark brown eggs.

How Blue Eggs Get Their Color

Every chicken egg spends about 20 hours in the shell gland, the part of the oviduct where the hen builds the shell. The shell itself is calcium carbonate, which is white.

Blue egg layers make a blue-green pigment called biliverdin in the shell gland. It goes into the shell while the shell is forming, so the color runs through the whole thing.

Brown egg layers work differently. They put most of their brown pigment on in the last few hours, so the color sits on the outside and the inside of the shell is pale.

That’s why a blue egg is blue inside and out. Crack one open, and the inside of the shell is the same blue as the outside.

The Blue Egg Gene

Blue eggs come from a single gene, called O for oocyan. Researchers described it back in 1933, and it’s dominant, so a hen only needs one copy to lay blue eggs.

A hen with two copies tends to lay a deeper blue. A hen with one copy can pass it to some of her chicks and not others.

In 2013, researchers in China found what switches the gene on. A small piece of retrovirus code sits next to a gene called SLCO1B3, and it switches that gene on in the shell gland.

The same kind of change happened twice, once in Chile and once in China. Wild jungle fowl don’t carry it, so it most likely showed up after people domesticated chickens.

Why Some Blue Eggs Look Green

A green egg is a blue egg with a brown coating on top. The hen makes the blue shell and then adds brown pigment at the end, the same way a brown egg layer would.

More brown makes a darker, more olive green. A little brown gives you a soft sage or minty green.

Crack a green egg open, and the inside of the shell is blue. My guide to chickens that lay green eggs covers how to breed for green, and my Isbar breed guide covers a breed that lays green eggs on its own.

Chickens That Lay Blue Eggs

Only a handful of breeds lay blue eggs reliably. Two are American Poultry Association breeds, one is an English breed, two are rare Chinese breeds, and the rest are hybrids or mixed birds.

Egg counts vary by line and by hatchery, so treat them as a range. The weights are for hens.

Ameraucana

Ameraucanas are an American breed, not a South American one. Breeders in the United States developed them in the 1970s and 1980s from blue egg layers of mixed backgrounds, and the American Poultry Association recognized them in 1984.

Hens weigh about 5 1/2 pounds and lay about 150 to 200 medium blue eggs a year. In practice, a lot of them lay a pale blue with a hint of green.

They have a pea comb, a beard and muffs, a full tail, and slate-colored legs. The pea comb holds up well to frostbite, which matters here in Vermont.

The Ameraucana Breeders Club lists 10 large fowl varieties, including Black, Blue, Wheaten, Self Blue, and Splash. My Ameraucana breed guide covers their care and temperament.

Araucana

Araucanas come from Chile, where they started as a cross between two kinds of chickens, one rumpless and one with ear tufts. The first Araucanas reached the United States in 1924, and the American Poultry Association recognized them in 1976.

True Araucanas are rumpless, so they have no tail, and they have tufts of feathers sprouting near their ears. Hens weigh about 4 pounds and lay about 150 to 200 blue eggs a year.

Tufts and rumplessness are what make them hard to breed. Chicks with two copies of the tuft gene die late in incubation, many with one copy die in the shell too, and rumpless birds can have fertility trouble. Araucana breeders report successful hatches of only about 25 to 55 percent.

That’s a big reason they’re rare. The Livestock Conservancy lists the Araucana as critical. The birds themselves are calm and friendly.

Cream Legbar

Researchers at Cambridge University in England developed Cream Legbars. Michael Pease bred the cream color in 1939 and crossed in Araucana blood in 1940, and Britain standardized the breed in 1958.

They lay sky blue to light green eggs, about 150 to 200 a year, and hens weigh about 4 1/2 to 6 pounds. They have a small crest, which comes from the Araucana side of the family.

Cream Legbars are autosexing, so you can tell the pullets from the cockerels by the color of their down. Many lines have lost some of that, though, so ask the breeder before you count on it.

Their single comb can get frostbite, and reports on temperament range from docile to flighty. They’re not Easter Eggers, though some lists call them that.

Easter Eggers

Easter Eggers aren’t a breed. They’re crossbred birds that carry the blue egg gene, and they don’t meet the standard for Ameraucanas or Araucanas.

Most lay blue or green eggs, and now and then one lays a rose or brown egg. Each hen lays one color for life, so you won’t know what you have until she starts laying.

Hatcheries often sell them as Ameraucanas or Araucanas, or as Americanas, which isn’t a breed at all. If you want a true Ameraucana, buy from a breeder who works with the standard.

Easter Eggers are friendly, hardy, and easy to find, and hatcheries estimate around 200 to 280 eggs a year. Since you can’t predict a hen’s egg color, every new pullet keeps you guessing until her first egg. My list of egg laying chickens for beginners has more breeds for a first flock.

Whiting True Blue

The Whiting True Blue is a hybrid layer, developed by Dr. Tom Whiting in Colorado in the 1990s. McMurray Hatchery sells them, along with a sister line called the Whiting True Green.

McMurray rates them at about 280 to 300 blue eggs a year, more than most blue egg breeds. They have a pea comb, and they don’t go broody often.

Other Blue Egg Chickens

China has its own blue egg breeds, including the Dongxiang from Jiangxi province and the Lushi from Henan province. They carry the blue egg gene from that second, separate origin, and you won’t find them outside China.

Some store-bought blue eggs come from a hybrid called the Azur. Hendrix Genetics developed it, partly from White Leghorns, and sells it to small farms and backyard egg producers as well.

Ameraucana vs. Araucana vs. Easter Egger

People mix these three up all the time, partly because hatcheries do too. A chick’s price and where you bought it can tell you a lot.

Here’s how to tell them apart once they’re grown.

• Ameraucana: An American breed with a beard, muffs, a tail, and a pea comb. It lays blue eggs.
• Araucana: A Chilean breed with no tail and ear tufts. It lays blue eggs and is rare.
• Easter Egger: A mixed bird with no standard. It lays blue or green eggs, and now and then a rose or brown one.

A chick sold as an Americana is an Easter Egger, and so are many hatchery chicks sold as Ameraucanas. Easter Eggers make good backyard birds, but it helps to know what you’re buying.

Raising Blue Egg Layers

Most blue egg layers handle cold well, and Ameraucanas and Easter Eggers with pea combs resist frostbite. My list of cold hardy chicken breeds has more that thrive in a northern winter.

If you want to hatch your own, remember that the blue egg gene is dominant. Daughters of a blue egg hen and a brown egg rooster usually lay green eggs, or brown if they didn’t get the blue egg gene. My guide to hatching chicken eggs walks you through it.

For a full flock, my guide to raising chickens covers the basics, and my list of chicken breeds from A to Z has the rest.

Blue Egg Chicken FAQs

Here are quick answers to the questions people ask most about blue eggs.

More Egg Color Guides

More ways to fill your basket with color.

Olive Eggers: Which Chickens Lay Green Eggs?

Chicken Egg Colors: Which Breeds Lay Which Color?

Which Chickens Lay Pink Eggs?

Raising Chickens

More ideas for raising a healthy backyard flock.

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Ameraucana Chicken Breed Guide

Orpington Chicken Breed Guide