Real live Easter eggs.

Our friend Ben is probably spilling the beans—or eggs, in this case—by scooping Silence Dogood on her series of Easter egg posts, which will be appearing here on Poor Richard’s Almanac every Sunday between now and Easter. Silence tells me that she plans to discuss natural Easter egg dyes, Easter egg traditions around the world, alternative ways to decorate eggs, how to blow an egg, and even special egg recipes you can serve on Easter morning. So stay tuned!

Meanwhile, here’s what’s on my mind: Did you know that some chicken breeds lay naturally colored eggs? First of all, breeds that lay “brown” eggs actually lay eggs in a wide range of colors, from deep red-brown to pale bisque and a beautiful pinkish-brown. Our friend Ben and Silence currently have a hen who lays the most lovely pinkish-brown eggs with white starlike spangles all over them. (Since we have a mixed flock of heritage breeds and don’t actually see the hens lay their eggs, we’re not sure which hen it is. But our money’s on Olivia, the Spangled Sussex.) If, like us, you had a mixed flock of brown-egg layers, you could come up with quite a pretty and varied color range.

But there are more dramatic options, too. Silence and our friend Ben once had an Ameracauna hen named Venetia who laid the most gorgeous sky-blue eggs. (Once you cracked those beautiful shells, the eggs themselves were like those of our other hens’, with the rich apricot yolks of spoiled, organically fed chickens—no matching blue yolks or green eggs and ham!) Our Pullet Palace can only accomodate six hens, but when an opening occurs, we’re planning to get another Ameracauna so we can revel in blue eggs once more.

It had been our friend Ben’s understanding that Ameracaunas were the hardier chicken breed created from the South American Aracauna, and that both breeds laid naturally colored eggs. The eggs could be blue, olive green, or pink, which made for a lot of excitement if you had a whole flock of them. But once a chicken became a hen and started laying, she would always produce just one color.

Before informing all of you of these “facts,” however, I wanted to check with my good friend Google to make sure I was correct and was spelling both Aracauna and Ameracauna correctly. Upon being directed to the official Ameracauna website, our friend Ben saw with some embarrassment that my “facts” were all screwed up. To just touch on the highlights, yes, Aracaunas and Ameracaunas both lay sky blue eggs. But the range of colors—blue, olive green, and pink—are laid by what the website refers to as “mongrel” chickens called Easter Egg chickens.

Well, geez. Our friend Ben would rather have chickens that laid sky blue, olive green, and pink eggs than chickens that just laid sky blue eggs any day. So sue me! And bring on the Easter Egg chickens, please. I just wish we had room for a half-dozen, but we only have room for six hens total and don’t want to give up our colorful mixed flock of heritage breeds, not even for several shades of Easter eggs.

Perhaps our white-spangled eggs should have given our friend Ben a clue, but nothing prepared me for this past Friday’s surprise in the Easter egg line. Silence and I were at our friends Carolyn and Gary’s for the weekly Friday Night Supper Club gathering. Carolyn opened a carton of eggs she’d just bought from her friend Nitya Ackeroyd of Woodsong Hollow Farm so she could boil some for our salad. Like us, Nitya has a mixed flock, and she likes to blend different colors of eggs in her cartons. Most of the eggs were varying shades of brown, and one was sky blue. But one was a pinkish brown with bright lavender speckles all over it. And when I say lavender, I mean lavender, not some washed-out shade. These speckles were screaming lavender-purple all over the egg. Talk about a ready-made Easter egg!

Unfortunately, Carolyn couldn’t tell our friend Ben the type of hen that had laid this amazing egg. I’ll have to get hold of Nitya and see if she knows. But meanwhile, I suggest that you check with local producers in your area and see if you can’t find some beautiful, colorful “Easter” eggs for sale. Imagine how amazed everyone will be when they see those colorful eggshells and you tell them they’re natural, straight from the hens. Wow!!!