Weird eggs...they change color!

[LanceTN]

But dirty eggs are actually safer.

 

[Farm Girl 1]

I wash mine because they will on occasion go into the run and lay in the run after it has been raining for days and it is extremely muddy. I'd rather wash them than be picking mud and poop out of the frying pan. So anyways I always wash mine.

 

[chixmaidservice]

I use a lightly damp paper towel on the occasional dirty egg. That way I hope I am keeping some of the natural antibacterial film, while making the egg more attractive to my customers. That being said, I had one first time egg buyer who challenged me on whether the eggs were" farm fresh", as she said they were too clean! Clean eggs come from clean nest boxes.

 

[blackgoat]

They came out of the nest box that way. I did wipe them with a wet paper towel to see if the white could be rubbed off. As they dried, the white came back. I was reading about egg quality issues, and it could be because of excess calcium, or a defective shell gland. I don't give them calcium, so if it's in the water or the soil, I can't really do much about it. I may try to find a feed that isn't supplemented. Excess calcium can also cause brown speckles, but Welsummers are supposed to lay speckled eggs, so, it's a mystery. It may not be one of the Welsummers, it could be one of the others, I just assumed so because of the speckles. I haven't been able to catch anyone in the next box.

This is the information about egg shell quality issues:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/common-egg-quality-problems

 

[mortie]

I know you don't need to wash eggs but if they happen to have a lot of mud or poop on them I do. Most of them time they come out nice and clean and fine but once in a while someone tracks a bunch of mud or poop on them so yeah, those get washed. I don't mine a little bit of mud or poop because I can work around that but if it's smeared all over the egg...that gets washed off.

 

[Farm Girl 1]

What a weird coincidence that yesterday I posted on here and this morning went to the chickens and collected an egg, when I was washing it in the house I noticed that it changed colour! It looked kind of dusty like the original poster's but when I wash it it is a nice dark brown! What a cool coincidence.

 

[AmericanMom]

Even tho I clean the nesting boxes daily there is always the occasional egg that has dirt, mud or poo on it... I sell a lot of my eggs weekly so I do wash them (the dirty ones) we go through eggs so fast we have never had a problem with bacteria getting into the eggs (atleast we have never gotten sick) The thought of a nasty looking egg in my clean fridge is just gross..

I have an EE hen that has for the past year laid pretty blue eggs , the last week her eggs have turned almost white and are hard to distinguish from the leghorn egg.. Do hens lose the ability to have the color on their eggs as they age?

 

[mortie]

They tend to be the brightest color early in the laying cycle. If she takes a break they may get brighter when she goes back to it