The color rubs off!!!!

[gabby3535]

My BCM hen has been laying for about a month now.........lovely chocolate brown eggs!

But today, while I was cleaning one of them off (the eggs, not the BCMs!) with a warm paper towel,
the paper towel looked like it blood on it!
But when I looked at the egg........the color was actually wiping off the egg itself!!!

This is the first BCM egg 'this' has happened to!!
What's up with that?!?!?!
Bad internal dye-job, or what?

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

Sounds like you have a perfectly normal Marans!

That's why they look so dark. It's an extra coating that eggs from other breeds don't get.

I'm not if it works the same way with Welsummers and Barnevelders, and other dark layers, but I would imagine it does.

 

[txchickie]

I have a golden cuckoo marans that her eggs do that!

My BCMs aren't laying yet, but I've heard that's normal.

 

[feathersnuggles]

Wow, I had no idea color peeling indicated anything! A few days ago the color rubbed off some spots on two eggs from my first laying pullet - which puzzled me, but I chalked it up to first time egg laying business. Her coloration is somewhat wrong for a Cuckoo Marans, I believe. She was supposed to be a CM, based on the info I got from the feed store where I bought her as a chick. But someone on BYC saw a picture of her, when I posted her first egg, and they said she looks more like a Barred Rock than CM, based on her yellow legs. Anyway, I had wondered about that too, besides her eggs weren't the dark chocolate brown that I expected.

Now, I am back to thinking she might be CM, after all. Here's her picture. Is she CM, b/c of the color sometimes rubs off her eggs? Or is she BR, b/c of yellowish legs?

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread here.

 

[1birdlady]

Sure looks like a Barred Rock to me...we have 4 of these ladies.

But then we're new to this and don't know all the variations, if any?

We get several different shades of brown in our eggs (light beige to tan)......when there is a "dirty" spot and we wipe, some color comes off.

 

[ODS-n-ENS FARM]

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My Marans eggs do the same. My welsummers only if its a real dirty egg.

 

[debilorrah]

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That IS a barred rock. No question about it.

 

[feathersnuggles]

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Thanks for confirming, debiraymond. Perhaps sometime in the future I'll try again to get a Marans or a dark egg layer. But for now, I have this BR and I love her!

 

[Lensters]

I think that it might be a BR x CM. The pattern look much more cuckoo than barred and the head is shaped much more like Marans than Rock. However, the legs say Rock, as does the body shape. However, if there is a coating on the shell that wipes off, that only comes from Marans. I vote for it being a BR x CM. This is a cross I thought about making but quickly decided against because it is too likely to end up poorly most of the time. However, if you are getting dark eggs on a nearly daily basis you got the best of both breeds!

As for Marans in general, I have purchased 100+ hatching eggs and haven't had one that without a disqualifying flaw (as well as most of the eggs are too light in color). I think a lot of people are getting a Marans or two and crossing them to other chickens and selling their eggs as Marans. Even within the big time breeders they have their color genes all mixed together. A Blue cockerel I bought from the best lines turned into a Birchen Blue rooster.

 

[feathersnuggles]

Quote:
Great info, Lenster! Thanks. Her eggs are small but almost daily, since she started laying 2 weeks ago. They are a rich brown color, not as dark as I thought they'd be, but darker brown than the BR in my neighbor's flock. Perhaps she is a cross breed after all and that could explain the confusing traits. She came from a feed store and they purchase hatchery chicks (I just don't know what hatchery it was).