Some of this year's chickens have started to lay their first eggs in the last couple of weeks and the exciting news is that we have blue and white egg layers (one of each) amongst the brown. The white are from a daughter of Red (our Red leghorn, Leghorns being white egg layers) who only lays for a few weeks each year (disappointingly so as Leghorns are usually prolific for their first 2-3 years). The cockerel (dad) is probably our Indian Game cockerel (IGs laying brown eggs). So a brown x white = white in this case although our understanding is that brown should be dominant!!
The blue eggs are perhaps less surprising as blue is considered a dominant colour. We have two adult blue (green) egg layers although both are themselves crosses: one is Queenie Baby Blue (the result of a mating of our pale brown egg-laying Queenie bantam and last year's Legbar cockerel) and the other the result of the same cockerel mating with an Indian Game. Our new blue egg layer is from a mating of this second cross and this year's Indian Game cockerel, meaning blue/brown x brown = blue.
The genetics are fascinating and of course we can draw no conclusions based on our small numbers. We are simply delighted that we are getting different coloured eggs to dazzle our visitors with. We had a neighbour once who swore blind that the eggs from our white egg laying birds tasted creamier but of course there really is no difference whatsoever!!!!
(PS. there are two duck eggs in amongst this lot as well, they are the larger, slightly mucky looking eggs at the bottom of the bowl.