Question on brown egg coloring and store bought eggs.

[meathook]

My little red stars and our one EE are going gang busters in the egg department. They started laying a few weeks ago and aside from a soft shelled egg or two (they seem to drop them two at a time) everything is great. Since January 1st we have had 27 eggs (several double yolkers and not counting soft shelled eggs probably another 6 or more of them) and are averaging 4.5 eggs a day from 6 birds and it has been mighty cold.

Here is my question there is a lot of variation in shell color which I think is great but how do they deal with this in a production farm environment. Do they use a different laying strain that lays more constant in color? Do they sort them by color so the dozens in the store look more consistent? It just seems to me the brown eggs I see in the store (honestly have mostly bought white) look much more uniform in color. Anyway just curious.

 

[jeslewmazer]

not quite sure but do believe that then use different breeds/strains of chickens for the white and brown eggs and then they sort the eggs by their qualities including the egg color. If I can find a video on it I'll try to post it.
No video yet. Found a Canada producer at http://www.eggs.ab.ca/index.htm
USDA Grading: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/Focus_On_Shell_Eggs/index.asp ,and, http://www.aeb.org/Foodservice/eggproducts.htm

 

[RocketDad]

My girls' eggs were a bit erratic at first, but they settled down to pretty consistent color after a few weeks. I can now tell which hen lays which egg, just by color, although shape is different for all too.

 

[cybercat]

I was looking at the brown egg in the store the other day. My thought is they dye the shell for these did not look like any normal egg color I have seen from Maran on down. Yes, they do sorta them also but I am betting the do dye them too. Hmm just thing everyone buying brown eggs that might just be white eggs dye brown. VERY POSSIBLE.

 

[meathook]

Ours are pretty consistent by bird although I am not positive yet who lays which but you can see a very similar "set" eggs every day but they are very different from each other. Here are a few days worth lots of variation.

 

[jeslewmazer]

I notice from my brown egg layers that different hens will lay a different shade of brown, some even look purplish to me. I have heard that in Marans that if laying is frequent the eggs will become lighter colored through the laying season, But I don't have experience with that breed. My black and gold Sexlinks don't seem to lose coloring but they do seem to be fairly constant on the the shade of brown each individual hen lays. And yes, some of my hens lay what looks to me as the same shade. Does this help any?

 

[Gelky]

I would assume that on a production egg farm, that they will use one breed of chicken for consistency and ease of management. Therefore producing the same egg types. So when you see them at the store, they are from the same lot of hens who live on the same farm, eating the same food and such.

Liken to my office, we buy the same Dell line of computers, consistency means easier to support, trouble shoot and manage.

 

[Tala]

The brown eggs we got from the store always had a bit of variation, just like my Red sexlink Queenie.
Some had darker speckles, or overall lighter shade, etc. so my hen's eggs are no different from theirs.