BoingBoing and several other blogs have picked up a story today about a hen in Mexico that lays green eggs - as if nobody's ever heard of such a thing before.
I've been familiar with multicolored hens' eggs since childhood. We always kept Araucana hens, partly because the eggs are so pretty and partly because they and their roosters are very mellow and non-aggressive. Their egg shells range in color from an almost olive green to lighter green to pale blue. The insides are the same as any other egg.
This photo shows a pretty good range of egg colors from my aunt's chickens:
It's a little difficult to tell because of the boiling water, but there are green, blue, pink, brown and white eggs in there. Fun, huh?
Part of me really wishes that I could build a chicken coop in my yard and keep hens for the eggs. However, it's not legal in the town where I live. Add to that the number and variety of predators that I regularly see roaming the yard and it would probably cause me more angst than it's worth anyway. I do enjoy farm fresh eggs, though.
That is pretty damned funny. Next thing you know, they'll be reporting that geese are having GREEN goslings. I actually had someone act like I was lying when I told him we had green goslings when I was a kid. Bah.
Posted by: cagey | January 31, 2008 at 05:58 PM
I laughed also. I read the same thing and said I had Easter egg chickens on the farm I grew up in Lawrence. No one believed me until I googled them. Oh us crazy farm kids!
Posted by: Kenna | January 31, 2008 at 08:51 PM
I had one chicken when I was a kid, but I don't think it ever produced eggs... I would not mind having some, but the chicken poop is kind of smelly, bad smelly.
Posted by: logtar | January 31, 2008 at 09:56 PM
I just have to throw in that not one person has yet mentioned the possibility of ham with those green eggs.
Posted by: super des | January 31, 2008 at 10:15 PM
Yeah, I wondered at that story too. Have these people never read Martha Stewart? She has a whole paint line based on those eggs.
Posted by: Suebob | February 01, 2008 at 08:41 AM
We had the South American chickens, too. One was black and one was white so I named them Blanco and Negro. They laid blue and/or green eggs and the eggs tasted just like any other eggs. How weird that this is considered newsworthy!
Posted by: MLE | February 04, 2008 at 07:06 PM