"How do I get Pink Eggs?"

I’ve been seeing and getting a lot of questions about how to be guaranteed your chickens are going to lay pink eggs.

And… The short answer is, there is no guarantee - and furthermore there is no chicken who actually lays “Pink” eggs.

In fact - to be technical, chickens are only capable of laying two different colored eggs - and those are Blue or White.

No matter what color you see on the outside of the shell - when you crack those eggs open, the shell inside is either going to be blue or white.

All of your blue and green eggs (no matter the shade) are going to have a blue eggshell base.

All of your browns, creams, “pinks” and “purples” are all going to have a white eggshell base.

The presentation of all of the beautiful colors that we see on our eggs including green, olive, grey, dark, brown, pink, and purple - all of these colors are caused by what is essentially an overlay on top of the eggshell.

Grays, pinks, and purples specifically are generally caused by very heavy blooms on top of that initial overlay of color deposit that causes the egg to look brown or green to begin with. This process of color deposit is one of the very last thing that happens in the development process of the egg, through the oviduct on its way out to hatch.

…And here is the thing, shades can vary daily (even from the same hen) and bloom deposits and speckles may also vary daily. So a hen who lays super super heavy bloomed, gray, pink or purple looking eggs sometimes - almost definitely will not lay that way every day.

However, if she has the capacity to lay with those blooms and speckles that were really hoping for, even periodically, then it means that she possesses those genetics within her. Which leads us to our next point…

Blooms and speckles tend to be genetic. It has definitely proven to be true in my flocks that those are traits that carry on down lines of chickens.

So, the way to breed towards having pink egg colors is to work with either brown or cream laying breeds, and hatch from hens who are prone to laying heavy bloomed eggs.
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Around here I see “pink” most often from my Wyandottes, Marans and brown laying back crossed Olives.