General Questions about eggs and chickens.

[pat100]

I am a newbie, after I stumble on to this site that I found out about easter eggs and copper looking eggs and ect. My first question is that Why do we only see brown and white eggs at the market for comsumtion? My second question is that When catagorizing chicken types, why do people separate bantam kind? What are this chickens and why are bantams not included in brown egg layer or white egg layer? Thanks in advance, Patrick

 

[FarmerDenise]

Bantam chickens are smaller than regular or standard chickens.
As far as the eggs are concerned, agribusiness (as do many poultry farmers) wants to sell as many eggs as possible from as few chickens as possible.
The chickens that lay blue, green or very dark brown eggs don't lay as many eggs per year as some of the chickens that lay white or regular brown eggs.

 

[LilPeeps]

Brown and white egg layers have been more selectively bred for production, and honestly the demand for green or blue eggs for consumption just isn't there in comparison to white or brown. Bantams are listed as seperate because they lay smaller eggs than LF birds bred for production. Bantams are mainly ornamental and were bred for characteristics other than laying ability, so they generally lay much less frequently.

 

[cybercat]

Beside production it is also a size issue. Bantams lays small eggs EE lays a med egg. Most eggs for sell in the stores are lrg, xlrg and jumbo. The production chickens these farms use only last a year. They lay a egg a day and when go into molt are replaced with another young hen. Very few places keep their hens past a year as it is just not worth it to them.

 

[Cindy in PA]

My two sets of EEs have always layed a large green egg & their production is only slightly behind my Barred Rocks. My first encounter with the RIR has been disappointing, long eggs, poor color & not consistent in laying. Procuction Reds were very productive, but I had problems with picking etc. EEs would not be good for production, but I don't think the egg size would be the problem.