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We are looking to add another chook or two to add to our family. Hubby has decided that he would like a one that lays blue eggs. Can anyone advise on breeds please? Also on suitability for living in a garden with a family and small kids. I have had a google and looked at the hybrids but can't make up my mind.

Thanks Nikki

A couple of ours are cream legbars and they lay a duck egg blue egg. Ours are very tame and bidable (if suitably bribed of course!)

Auracanas (sp) -

ditto aracarnas (sp)!!

Araucanas (greeny-blue eggs), Cream Legbars (blue eggs), Columbines (blue, green, olive eggs), Skylines (blue, blue-ish white eggs).

Araucanas are the breed from which all the blue egg laying breeds descend. They originate from South America—roughly speaking modern Chile. They've been in the UK for at least 100 years but only got their name in the 1930s. Before that, they were just "those chickens that lay blue eggs". There's an Araucana Club.

It's quite hard to find genuine Cream Legbars, which were developed in the 1930s from Brown Leghorns and Barred Rocks with a dash of Araucana. There are very few breeders left with genuine, good quality lines that breed true. (Most so-called Cream Legbars are modern crosses of Araucanas with other breeds to produce multi-coloured eggs.)

Columbines are a modern hybrid bred from Cream Legbars crossed with other breeds to produce more eggs to meet the commercial demand for multi-coloured eggs. However, there is a higher risk that the hens will lay eggs that are not blue.

Skylines are another modern hybrid bred to meet the commercial demand for coloured eggs.

I know someone who breeds blue egg layers, but I can't recal the breed

What are they like as layers?