Shop bought eggs

[Av Gorritt]

I bought 2 half dozen packs of "Organic free range " eggs earlier this week . I was absolutely gobsmacked when I opened them . I don't really know why , but I was -- They were WHITE . Nothing wrong with that of course , but I was simply expecting brown ! All to do with marketing I think . In America just about all the shop bought eggs are white , being marketed as " white symbolising purity ". They were really good eggs to eat BTW.

 

[Cowabunga]

I haven't seen white eggs in many years. They seem to have been quite common 40 to 50 years ago. Of course, since I don't shop for eggs myself, it could be that my nearest and dearests just choose to buy brown eggs. What do I know, apart from that we used to get them years ago.

 

[borderterribles]

Times change and fashions with them, I suppose. Years ago when laying flocks were predominantly Leghorns, then eggs were usually white. As a pure breed , they are fantastic layers, but their eggs are white or almost white.
Brown eggs are assumed to be more wholesome by the buying public, (complete rubbish, I know, but hey ho! ) We have a few Araucanas with our hens, and their eggs are blue-green, just as a talking point really. When people raise the issue of shell colour with me, I usually say "well, we throw the shells away, what do you do with them?"

 

[Y Fan Wen]

Never had anything serious to do with hens. In college in the 60s we learned that white layers produced more per season than brown ones, hence brown were more expensive. Even so, white gradually disappeared from the uk s/mkt. I found there were white eggs in Russia and both S America and N. I actually thought they were peeled hard boiled when I was getting my first buffet breakfast.

 

[Dry Rot]

Just to hi-jack the thread, if collecting eggs for the incubator, is it wise to take them all or leave one or two to encourage further laying? (They are white eggs, by the way, if that makes a difference! ). Yes, big decisions and very worrying!

 

[Lincsman]

White eggs were the mainstay of proper caged birds, the hens were small and layed better than anything else, but public opinion forced the industry down the barn / free range route with brown eggs for no real reason.

You can buy blue eggs from a legbar chicken now from the likes of Waitrose.

 

[beefandsleep]

Just to hi-jack the thread, if collecting eggs for the incubator, is it wise to take them all or leave one or two to encourage further laying? (They are white eggs, by the way, if that makes a difference! ). Yes, big decisions and very worrying!

You won’t stop them laying by taking all the eggs but they might decide to lay somewhere else, depends how good you are at finding nests[emoji23]

 

[wdah/him]

white free range eggs can still be got in a few shops, think there is a certain religion that wants it but im not sure, but i know there is a demand just not as much as for normal brown free range, suppose it could be cost.

Have heard they do lay more but perhaps they are more medium grades that large eggs, i never really followed that up, most people seem to prefer large eggs when buying graded

 

[goodevans]

Just to hi-jack the thread, if collecting eggs for the incubator, is it wise to take them all or leave one or two to encourage further laying? (They are white eggs, by the way, if that makes a difference! ). Yes, big decisions and very worrying!

Just to hi-jack the thread, if collecting eggs for the incubator, is it wise to take them all or leave one or two to encourage further laying? (They are white eggs, by the way, if that makes a difference! ). Yes, big decisions and very worrying!

Get yourself a clay one or at least hard boil one and mark it

 

[Netherfield]

1960's A white leghorn or hybrids bred from the same could expect to lay 280/290 eggs in 52 weeks. Brown birds basically Rhode Island Reds or as again hybrids bred from these would be giving 230/240 eggs in 52 weeks.

Not only where you getting more eggs, the white bird was cheaper to get to point of lay, a white bird would weigh around 3 lbs whereas a brown bird would weigh nearer 4 lbs, so eating more food in the rearing stage.

Brown birds were more docile and easier to rear the white ones, white didn't like sudden noises and could pile up in the corner of a shed and smother the ones at the bottom of the pile, similarly just opening the shed door too quick and the light coming in would have the same effect.

On the other hand it was possible to keep and rear more white birds in a given area.

As years moved on breeding did the same the speckled brown and white birds we now see can match the output of the white birds and can be reared for the same costs.

 

[Dry Rot]

Get yourself a clay one or at least hard boil one and mark it

So, leave an egg in the nest.

 

[ski]

The actual reason white eggs disappeared was due to the fact that as automation crept in the first egg belts were made of a hessian like material and any hen muck / dirt that got on it was not easily cleaned and was easily transferred on to white eggs making them dirty. Brown eggs do not show the dirt as much. The differences between brown and white birds had nothing to do with it.

 

[Paddington]

We used to tell customers for our eggs that Araucanas ate grass so green eggs and the brown eggs were from hens eating layers pellets. White eggs were from hens on a diet.

 

[Netherfield]

We used to tell customers for our eggs that Araucanas ate grass so green eggs and the brown eggs were from hens eating layers pellets. White eggs were from hens on a diet.

If you'd had some of them Blue with Brown spots, you could have said they'd been eating blue Smarties.

 

[Still Farming]

Our free range bantam eggs are always white!

 

[goodevans]

So, leave an egg in the nest.

Yes

 

[Netherfield]

It's easy enough to turn brown eggs white, anti coccsidiostat will do it,Well at least Pancoxin did.

 

[Still Farming]

It's easy enough to turn brown eggs white, anti coccsidiostat will do it,Well at least Pancoxin did.

Lovely free range ????

 

[Av Gorritt]

Personally , I think Thornbers of Mytholmroyd had more to do with the fashion in egg colour in the past than anybody . They developed the hybrid 404 s, a white Leghorn type, which , in the right hands was an egg laying machine , and they laid white eggs , which could be produced under intensive conditions ie batteries , cheaper than anything seen before . They also produced the 606 hybrid , a RIR type that produced brown eggs but not as prolifically , and not as cheaply . In the days of "the packer " who simply bought eggs by grade , not colour , the 404 was the "go-to " for commercial producers . Latterly of course public perceptions have changed and brown eggs are the norm . However , one of my extended family works for a supermarket and tells me that white eggs are having a come back . "Plus ca change " an' all that .

 

[wrenbird]

In the late nineties Delia Smith used only white eggs in her new cookery series on the bbc and caused a surge in popularity for white eggs at the time. When I’ve seen cookery programmes from elsewhere in the world white eggs seem to be the norm rather than brown.