364breeds
336in stock
10hatcheries

Home / Guides / Breeds by egg colour

Buying guide

Breeds by egg colour

Every eggshell starts white. The colour is added on the way out, and how it is added explains why a blue egg is blue inside and a brown one is not.

Where the colour comes from

A blue egg gets its colour from a pigment called biliverdin, laid down through the whole shell as it forms, so the inside is blue too. Brown is a different pigment, protoporphyrin, painted on the outside at the very end, which is why a brown egg is white inside and why its colour can be rubbed lighter. Green and olive are both at once: a brown coat over a blue shell.

A hen lays her darkest eggs at the start of her laying season, and they lighten as she goes. That matters most for the dark brown breeds, where a show line and a hatchery line of the same Marans can lay very different eggs.

Blue

15 of the 17 listings for blue-egg breeds are in stock today.

Green

8 of the 10 listings for green-egg breeds are in stock today.

Olive

3 of the 7 listings for olive-egg breeds are in stock today.

Dark brown

14 of the 18 listings for dark brown-egg breeds are in stock today.

Brown

51 of the 62 listings for brown-egg breeds are in stock today.

Light brown

41 of the 43 listings for light brown-egg breeds are in stock today.

Tinted

46 of the 48 listings for tinted-egg breeds are in stock today.

Cream

41 of the 46 listings for cream-egg breeds are in stock today.

White

67 of the 75 listings for white-egg breeds are in stock today.

Grey

1 of the 1 listings for grey-egg breeds are in stock today.

Speckled

0 of the 3 listings for speckled-egg breeds are in stock today.

Figures on this page were computed from the catalogue reading of October 25, 2026.

All guides · Every listing