Pls solve - does feather color or earlobe color determine egg color?

[guesswhatchickenbutt]

My friend called me up today and said she saw on the Today Show today that feather color determines egg color - so white hens lay white eggs and brown hens lay brown eggs. I told her that I thought earlobe color was the key to egg color (putting breed aside of course).

Is there a definitive answer?

Thanks all!!!

(BTW, Happy 1st hatchday to my girls today!!! They're one year old!!!)

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

Earlobe color GENERALLY indicates egg color.

There ARE exceptions, but generally speaking the white-lobed birds lay white eggs while red-lobed birds lay brown. Some Exceptions: Easter Eggers, Hollands...

 

[speckledhen]

What determines egg color is the breed. What indicates egg color is often the earlobe color, but there are exceptions.

white hens lay white eggs and brown hens lay brown eggs.

Nope. That is true in some cases, just because some white breeds do lay white eggs and some red breeds do lay brown eggs, but the feather color does not determine egg color, it's a gross generalization. I raise Delawares, white birds who lay dark brown eggs, for example.​

 

[guesswhatchickenbutt]

Quote:
thanks so much! excellent answer.

 

[ranchhand]

The Today Show interviewee was a chef from Cooking Light magazine. Her generalization might apply to a huge egg laying operation, but that's about it.

Egg color is determined by the BREED rather than color, because there are so many exceptions to the ear color "rule".


LOL, I learned that from speckledhen, who types faster than I!

 

[Illia]

The feather coloring telling egg color thing is absolute bologna - There was a recent post about that silliness on the today show.

Earlobe color often tells if the hen lays a white or brown egg, but nothing beyond that ( infact dark brown, blue, green, olive green, etc are not recognizable by earlobe color. ) And actually in quite a few breeds, it is opposite.

If chicken's feather coloring told egg color, we'd have WAY more egg colors, but have no green or blue.

 

[HBuehler]

I saw the show...the woman on had no clue about chickens so when she said egg color was determined by white chickens laying white eggs and colored birds lay brown we about choked on our coffee

I e-mailed the Today show and told them that they had a very poor egg expert. OK Which one of us addicts is hiding the GREEN chicken
Then I told my Rhode Island Whites to shape up and lay those white eggs and my Black Minorca's had better get some brown on their eggs because the experts said they were doing it wrong...you know what they said?!!

 

[Henk69]

White ears and white eggshell are completely unrelated things that happen to be both on most non asiatic breeds.
Also white ears are an "extra layer" on top of red ears and white eggs are white because of absence of an extra layer of brown pigment.

 

[pdsavage]

What?Some one needs to tell my chickens they are all wrong and to lay the right colors acording to what feathers they have...So my buffs should be laying gold eggs by now.....

 

[Attack Chicken]

I want my black wyandottes to start laying black eggs! One of my black wyandotte girl has a red earlobe but lays a white egg

If this is true I'm going out right now to get some buff birds that lay golden eggs!