eggs

[speedybombsh]

can anyone tell me why you dont see white hens eggs anymore like in the seventies this has always baffled me when i was young we always had white eggs

[Buenchico]

The colour of an egg's shell is largely determined by the diet which the chicken has been fed. Presumably the type of feed favoured by egg-producers has changed over the years.

There will be people who read this thread who know far more about chickens than I do - and I hate eggs anyway - but I do recall that, back in the early 1960's, all of the factory-farmed eggs that my mother sent me to buy from the local Co-op were nearly always white but the eggs that our next door neighbour sometimes allowed me to collect from their free-range chickens were nearly always brown. This suggests that brown is the more 'natural' colour.

Chris

[SteveD]

This was asked just a few days ago:

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Food-and-Drink/Question143384.html

[ken c]

I think it was found out by the powers that be that Brown eggs were bought in preferance to white ones as we Brits think they are more healthy

where as in California  they are mainly white (there is No difference health wise)

[joko]

I have read that the colour is determined by the colour of the hens feathers -white hens lay white eggs, brown hens lay brown eggs. simple really. anyone know otherwise?

[commoner]

....I remember many years ago before things became "scientific" that If one crossed a Rhodisland male

[commoner]

....Start over.........Commercial layer breeds have been developed in which the sex of the day-old chicken is identified by plumage (colour and markings); males are predominantly white and females brown. Colour sexing as a method of sexing has had a significant impact on reducing overall costs, therefore egg producers on a big scale go for this method when buying chicks for egg laying stock. They can pick out the brown chicks (which lay BROWN eggs) and they then don't have to rear the noneproducing male chicks.........We get brown eggs therefore for purely commercial reasons............Better ask Delia Smith about white eggs...she uses them all the time..<G>

[Narolines]

This "brown hens lay brown eggs & white hens lay white ones" sounds extremely suspect to me; what colour eggs do black hens lay? What possible effect can the colour of the feathers have on eggshell colour anyway?  If you remove the hen's feathers will it lay shell-less eggs? Are blue duck eggs laid by blue ducks? I don't think so........

[commoner]

LOL.......Black hens lay white eggs. The colour of any birds egg is determined by genetics....A Song thrush lays blue eggs with dark spots...a Blackbird lays green and brown mottled eggs and so on...brown hens lay brown eggs, white or black hens lay white eggs..........most ducks lay one of a variety of shades of blue or greeny-blue, hence the term"duck egg blue"...that's the way of things Narolines so you better get used to it..<G>

[salsagirl]

Have you seen the pastel blue ones they are selling in Tesco now?  MAD

[LordyGeordie]

I don't know whether it's the colour of the hens that effects the egg colour or what but the reason you don't see white hens eggs anymore is because for whatever reason supermarkets etc.don't want them.

just the other day i visited a poultry farm where they had several thousand hens (brown ones) in a large barn - but not battery style they were allowed to wander outside.

anyhow on the wall next to where they do all the egg packaging was a poster from the people who do the Lion brand for egg quality. it had photos of different sizes and shapes of eggs and detailing which ones were acceptable for general consumption. ones which were too pointy, knobbly etc were seperated and used as ingredients in other products.

among the latter list was white eggs, why i don't know, but that's why you don't see them in supermarkets.

on another point, the farmer gave me a dozen eggs which had just been laid that day and they were delicious. apparently it normally takes about four days for them to reach the supermarket.