Here is my first experiment using natural dyes on ostrich and emu eggs. I made one of each, first etched them in vinegar, then used the same two dyes – my favorite coreopsis for yellow (turned out sort of green on emu egg) and madder+cochineal for red (brownish on emu).

Here’s the ostrich:

Photo courtesy of Mykola Swarnyk

The dots are specific to ostrich egg shells. The shell itself is very smooth, similar to rhea, and the wax tends to peel of sometimes – not sure yet what to do with that, perhaps making sure that the egg itself is on the warm side and the wax is well heated would help.

Here is emu:Photo courtesy of Mykola Swarnyk

It was etched again after the red dye.

In general, I would say, the experiment was interesting. It takes a lot of dye though, and unless one is doing a good number of big eggs at the same time, the amount of the dyes seems rather wasteful, it’s not clear what to do with them afterward – I put mine in a fridge and used some for the eggs in the previous post, but they did not work quite as well as the fresh ones would be expected to work.

For now I only have one or two emus left, and no other big eggs (have plenty of duck and goose instead), so probably will not be dyeing the big ones any time soon. It would be interesting to use dye on rhea egg – the color of its own shell should give nice tones.