A Brookfield chicken has the blues.

Easter has come and gone, but one local chicken is still laying colored eggs -- blue eggs to be exact.

Dalmatian, a hen known for her speckled feathers, will only lay blue eggs, says chicken owner Mary Hubish, 6282 Amy-Boyle Road NE.

Mrs. Hubish, 73, said of all the 30 chickens she owns, she never thought any of them would turn out quite like Dalmatian.

The 2-year-old hen got her name from the Dalmatian dog breed when she was a peep. Mrs. Hubish said she doesn't usually name her chickens, but Dalmatian had black and white spots much like the dogs and got her name from Mrs. Hubish's granddaughter and other neighborhood children. As the chick developed, the speckles turned white, gray and tan and blended in as her feathers developed. But the name stuck.

The first time Mrs. Hubish noticed Dalmatian's bluish-gray eggs she was in disbelief. They were nothing like the brown eggs the other chickens were laying.

"I had to look again. I said to myself, 'is this for real? It's going to lay me blue eggs?,' " Mrs. Hubish said.

The blue eggs are slightly different from the other chickens. Mrs. Hubish has a variety of chickens: Rhode Island reds, black giants, white rocks and barred rocks. She said Dalmatian's eggs are more oblong than the others and a little pointy on the sides. They are also smaller than the eggs that the other chickens lay.

Mrs. Hubish said every two days when Dalmatian gets ready to lay her blue eggs she does it in a peculiar way. She jumps into a barrel and "gives it a go."

Mrs. Hubish, who lives on a farm with other animals, said she has lived with chickens since she was 2 years old and had 1,000 chickens around the farm where she grew up.

"I enjoy having chickens. My sister and I would feed them, clean up after them and put them to sleep. Now my in-laws have them," she said.

She said she has never had chickens lay eggs the color of Dalmatian's. She feeds them all the same, ground soybeans and corn for minerals, and bread for treats.

Mrs. Hubish, who works at Bobby D's in Brookfield, said she sometimes takes eggs to her boss and co-workers and has passed the blue ones out to children in the neighborhood.

"All of the eggs have deep golden orange yolks and they're very tasty in fact," she said. "When I take them to work, the ladies can't believe the eggs."

Ann Wozniak, 70, of Straubsville, and a friend of Mrs. Hubish said she was "shocked" when she saw the blue eggs.

"I never heard of such a thing in all my life. Of all the chickens in the world. I don't know why this one is laying blue eggs. This is something out of Ripley's Believe It or Not," she said.

Lorna Rhodes, secretary for the American Poultry Association, said there are purebred chickens called Araucanas that are known for laying blue eggs. She said she would guess that Ms. Hubish's chicken probably carries genes from that breed.

The small, rumpless and ear-tufted birds are hard to find and most in the United States are mixed-breed, carrying some of the original genes, Ms. Rhodes said. They lay eggs in pastel shades of blue, green and sometimes pink.

She said the APA also recognizes a bird called the Americauna, which evolved from the Araucana.

"The Araucana is a chicken from South America and their blue egg characteristic is strong," she said. "When it's crossed with something else, the offspring is able to produce the eggs too. The Americauna in this country developed from the Araucana, which are pretty rugged.

"Americauna's are fairly rare for genetic reasons. There aren't many around and a lot of them that people claim are out there are being identified wrong," she said.

Most egg colors vary depending on the breed of chicken or what the chicken eats, Ms. Rhodes said.

She said the owners of chickens that lay colored eggs usually "adore" their birds.