From the Flock · Showing

Showing Eggs at the Great Yorkshire Show

My first experience of showing eggs at the Great Yorkshire Show — and what talking with judges and experienced exhibitors taught me about shape, matching and colour.

Great Yorkshire Show 2026 Written by Jamie Scully Showing · Egg Exhibition

First Impressions

Showing eggs at the Great Yorkshire Show was a new experience for me, and although I didn’t place, it ended up being far more useful than a rosette would have been.

The biggest benefit came from speaking to people who actually know what they are looking for. I had the chance to talk with other exhibitors and judges, and came away with a much clearer idea of what matters when preparing eggs for competition.

Three brown Welsummer eggs entered at the Great Yorkshire Show — My brown egg entry — three Welsummer eggs.

Three green eggs entered at the Great Yorkshire Show — My green egg entry.

Darkness is not everything

One of the most useful things I learned concerned brown eggs. With breeds such as Marans and Welsummers, it is very easy to become fixated on darkness of shell colour.

That is an important breed characteristic in its own right, particularly with Marans, but in the brown egg classes I was told that evenness of colour across the entry is more important than simply having the darkest eggs possible.

Lesson from the show

A closely matched group of brown eggs can make a stronger exhibition entry than one containing a spectacularly dark egg alongside others that are noticeably lighter.

A group of eggs that match one another closely in shade and appearance can therefore make a stronger show entry than a collection containing one spectacularly dark egg alongside several noticeably lighter ones.

It sounds obvious once it is pointed out, but breeding for egg colour and selecting eggs for exhibition are not quite the same exercise.

Prize-winning egg entries displayed at the Great Yorkshire Show 2026

Reference · Winning entries

What success looked like

Looking at the winning entries made the advice much easier to understand. These are prize-winning entries from the show, not my own eggs.

The overall impression is not simply one of striking colour. The eggs read as carefully selected sets: balanced shapes, close matching and a deliberate consistency from one egg to the next.

What I Learned

Three things to select for

Correct shape

The individual egg has to be right before colour becomes useful. Smooth outline, correct proportions and balance between broad and narrow ends matter enormously.

Match the set

Three good eggs are not automatically a good set. Size, shape, shade and general appearance need to work together.

Representative colour

Colour still matters, especially where it is a breed characteristic, but it has to sit alongside shape and uniformity rather than replacing them.

British Poultry Standards open at the Marans breed standard

The target

Shape comes first

The other major lesson was the importance of shape.

The British Poultry Standards includes guidance towards the latter pages on the ideal form of an exhibition egg. A good egg should have the proper balance between the broader rounded end and the narrower end, with a smooth, symmetrical outline and no obvious irregularities.

From what I learned at the show, this is perhaps the most important feature to get right. Colour can catch the eye, but an egg that is poorly shaped is still a poor exhibition egg.

My Entries

Looking at the set

The same principle applies even when the purpose of the class is to show contrast rather than matching colour. Each egg still needs to be a strong exhibition egg in its own right, and the three need to work together as a deliberate set.

One of Scully Poultry's three-distinct-colour egg entries — One of my three-distinct-colour entries at the Great Yorkshire Show.

Another three-distinct-colour egg entry from Scully Poultry — Another of my three-distinct-colour entries.

A further three-distinct-colour egg entry from Scully Poultry — A further three-distinct-colour entry from the show.

Next Year

That gives me a much clearer target for next year.

Rather than simply choosing the darkest or most striking eggs from the nest box, I want to select a set that combines three things: correct shape, close uniformity between the eggs, and good representative colour for the breed.

For my brown-egg breeds in particular, that means looking at the entry as a complete set rather than judging every egg individually.

Although I came home without a placing this year, I also came home knowing much more about what a judge is actually looking for. That makes the experience worthwhile in itself.

Next year the aim is simple: better-shaped eggs, more even colour, and a much more deliberate selection process.

Sometimes not winning is still a very effective way of finding out what winning actually requires.

The target for next time

Select the set, not just the egg

The lesson I came away with is that exhibition selection is its own skill. A striking individual egg is useful; three correctly shaped, closely matched eggs that belong together are better.