In Search of the Illusive Purple Egg Layer.

Our Rainbow of Egg Colors

I love a beautiful basket full of mixed color eggs as much as anyone.  For that very reason we acquired a variety of hen breeds over the years who laid eggs in tints from chalk to chocolate.   Pretty as their eggs were, we eliminated the “chocolate” (Marans) eggs because we found too large of a percentage contained dark bits and pieces in the whites and yolks.  Not very appetizing to find in your breakfast.   Easter Egger and Olive Egger hens produce lovely shades not found elsewhere, but we have yet to see a purple egg.

There is a persistent rumor across the Internet that Langshan hens lay plum or purple colored eggs.   From what I have personally seen, and from comments made by many breeders, that is simply not true.  What is true?  Langshan hens can and do lay a spectrum of brown tints, and some even produce eggs with speckling, though it should be noted individual hens in a variety of breeds do this as well and not the type of spotting seen on quail or other game bird eggs. 

So why and how did this purple egg rumor start?  

It might be easiest to start with a very basic explanation of how eggshells are made.    All egg shells are formed from calcium carbonate which is a whitish substance.   Blue eggs are produced when the chicken carries a gene allowing the production of a pigment called oocyanin, a by-product of bile formation.  This pigment tints the entire shell all the way through.  Brown eggs are the result of a brown pigment, prophyrin derived from haemoglobin in the blood.   As a white shelled egg passes through the oviduct, prophyrin is deposited on the outside of the shell.  Excessive scrubbing of brown eggs can remove the brown coating.  Breaking open a brown egg reveals a white interior.  These are the only three building blocks of egg color in chickens.

A green or olive egg is produced when a blue egg breed carrying the gene for oocyanin is crossed with a brown egg breed carrying the gene for prophyrin production.  In the eggs of their offspring, brown pigment overlays the blue tinted shell, resulting in some shade of green.  When a green egg is opened, the interior is blue.

Egg shells are also porous to allow an air exchange for the developing embryo.  In order to keep bacteria from entering through the pores, the hen also produces a protective coating as she lays.  In a significant number of Langshan hens that protective coating appears as an obvious pinkish “bloom.”

A Langshan egg is centered in the picture below.  I intentionally placed the eggs in a purple bowl for comparison.  This image was taken with Canon T3i set on AV with automatic white balance, outside, on an overcast morning, with lots of light reflected from snow.  It has not been altered.  Note where my greasy finger (from coating the rooster combs with protective ointment in our current cold temps) removed the rosy pinkish "bloom" from the side.

Purple Bowl of Eggs - Langshan Egg in Center

This bloom is where the misconceptions may have begun.   Back in the late 19^th century, A.C. Croad, niece to Major F.T. Croad, the original importer, wrote a book titled “The Langshan Fowl.*”  In its third edition chapter entitled “The Egg, The Chick, and The Adult Fowl,”  Ms. Croad states, with respect to the breed's egg laying, “The Langshan seems to defy all set rules in this respect, and indulges in a charming variety; the tints are varied from the palest salmon to the darkest chestnut brown.  On some there is a bloom like that on freshly-gathered fruit, whilst others are spotted, often literally splashed all over with dark spots, and the same hen will tint her eggs differently one day from what she does on another.  We have noticed that these spotted eggs occur most frequently during the spring months,…”

As in a game of telephone where the original story gets distorted in the telling from one to the next, it is possible that the comparison to fresh fruit became a comparison to a grape or plum, which fruits are both “egg shaped” and display the most obvious bloom.  You can see a photo of Burbank plums demonstrating that bloom here.  In subsequent quotes, the comparison to those fruits may have led to an association with the colors of plums or grapes and so on down the line until it eventually became purple colored eggs.    

The Internet is a wonderful thing and Photoshop© can do amazing things with images, but neither will make a Langshan hen lay a purple egg.  Now there may very well be hens laying lavender tinted eggs out there, and if so, I suspect they are Easter Eggers.  Those hens really do lay a varied assortment, probably because their genetics are so varied.  So please, if you want a veritable rainbow in your egg basket, purchase Easter Eggers, Olive Eggers and any chicken(s) you think are simply beautiful, including Langshan if they suit you.  After all, you will spend a lot of time and money caring for them; but don't drop your hard earned cash on a mythical beast.


* A.C. Croad is credited with being the founder of the breed in Great Britain.  Her book "The Langshan Fowl" Third Edition, published in 1889, is available as a free download from Google books.  In this book she simply refers to the breed as "Langshan."  I suspect the moniker "Croad Langshan" was given later to honor her and her uncle.  The Germans took to developing a different style of Langshan that can be seen on this Feathersite page.  Here in the USA we only have the "Croad" type though we call them simply Langshan as did Ms. Croad.  If you are interested in the Langshan breed it is a very informative read.