Chicken Egg Color Anomalies Due to Hot Weather

The summer heat seems to affect everything, even our eggs! A while back it got over 103 degrees F and I had one chicken go into heat stroke because she had decided to start going broody that day. I got an emergency crash course in reviving and stabilizing a chicken in severe heat stroke. What I hadn't expected is two days later another one suffered heat stroke too. I caught her signs much earlier as I happened to be home when the second one started to collapse!

What I hadn't thought possible was the effects the heat has on the chickens' eggs. My Phoenix hen, the second one to heat stroke, stopped laying for almost a month, or so I thought. The heat had caused her to stop laying her usual blue green eggs and she was laying white ones! We have another hen that lays white eggs and I had thought that she was laying more often, but nope. The hen had only the tiniest hue of blue on white.

I doubled the amount of electrolytes and probiotics in their water along with my old standby unfiltered apple cider vinegar. She went from laying a white egg to laying blue green eggs. Don't believe it? The photo below shows an egg she laid last week compared to her egg today! She is not the only one showing changes however. Our top hen, the boss, usually lays dark mocha colored eggs with reddish spots. Her eggs have been light brown with white spots since the summer heat started (see photo at top)! Keep an eye on those eggs. The slightest color changes can tell you that your hens are lacking in electrolytes or are feeling ill even before they physically show it!