It used to be the case that you never knew what colour chick you were going to get, unless you had a red or a striped egg.  So, if you got an orange egg you could get an orange or a red chick and so on until you got to violet eggs which could give you any colour.  This year I've noticed that the chick has always been the same colour as the egg.  Is this the case?

Not in my garden. I've had 2 orange and 1 yellow eggs and they've all hatched as red chicks.

nope -- i keep records too!!  the color is not always the same

Just coincidence then.  I've had a yellow chick from a yellow egg, a green chick from a green egg and an indigo chick from an indigo egg.

I've done 60 chicks so far -- only around 25% have hatched from same color

OK.  So I've been really unlucky!

Yes, just co-incidence.

There have been loads of threads here over the past few days, from people who have been confused that their egg brought a different colour chick.

If you have several colours of egg in your garden, though, you are more likely to see the chick coming to the same colour of egg, since it will go to the lowest colour it can.  So if you had, for instance, yellow, orange and green and a yellow chick was programmed in, it would go to the yellow egg.  Whereas if you only had the green egg, or if you had a green and an indigo, the yellow chick would have to go to the "wrong" colour of egg because the "right" colour isn't in the garden.

I know how it works but I've only ever had two eggs at a time in my garden.  It's just an amazing coincidence that all of my eggs have produced chicks that are the same colour as the egg.

Red chick from a red egg.  Violet chick from a violet egg.

Actually, since it was missed, you have no way to know if the red chick was from the red or from the violet.  The red egg will always attract only a red chick.  The violet egg can attract any color except rainbow.  More information can be found under the "seasonal" tab of the wildlife guide.