All About Eggs!

The Education coop at the Children’s Farmyard is home to a wide variety of chickens — both big and small — including some of these visitor favorites: Polish, Barred Rock, Belgian d’Uccle, and Black Copper Maran. Take a tour of our coop here! 

Our chickens are a combination of egg laying and ornamental breeds that are friendly, curious, and patient with visitors. The majority are hens except for our giant rooster, Big Foot. Hens lay eggs regardless of whether there is a rooster present, but a rooster can fertilize these eggs so that if they are incubated for 21 days, they may hatch into chicks.

Did you know that chicken eggs come in colors other than white and brown?! Have you ever seen a blue or green egg? The color of a chicken’s egg is determined by its breed. As the egg develops, it is “painted” by pigment created by the chicken’s body. Blue eggshells are blue on both the inside and outside. The pigment for brown eggs is only found on the outside of the eggshell, the inside is still white. Learn about what the eggs of different breeds look like in our matching game:

Click to play the fullscreen version here.

There are many fun uses for your leftover eggshells along with tossing them  into the compost. Here are some ideas to explore:

• You can crush them up and give them back to your chickens as a calcium rich treat.  
• You can turn them into sidewalk chalk! Here’s a recipe!
• You can turn eggshells into planters for seed starts and then plant directly into the soil. Check out this creative video that shows you how to create egg shell planters. 

Through hands-on experiences like the chicken parade, collecting eggs, and chicken chores, we strive to inspire joy, wonder, and appreciation for these important (and beautiful!) birds that provide us with so much.