# Brown eggs: Light shell color = thinner shell? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 15, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212 "2014-07-15T20:19:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/1 "2014-07-15T20:19:07Z")
I buy brown eggs. Sometimes the eggs are quite pale in color, and it seems that those eggs consistently have thinner shells (that is, they crack much more easily). Or am I just imagining that? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/2 "2014-07-15T21:34:13Z")
Different breeds of chicken have different colors of eggs. Chickens also have a molt in which they do not lay eggs, and when they return to laying the color of their eggs may be darker for a while. The color of the eggs really has no correlation with the contents of the eggs, the health, or the thinness of the shells. It may be your imagination, or the eggs you are getting that are lighter colored may be coming from farms that don’t supplement their hen’s diet with enough calcium so their egg shells are weaker, and the correlation is incidental. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/3 "2014-07-15T23:58:59Z")
This is often the case with eggs in the same 1/2 dozen box (I buy them by the 1/2 dozen). Darker shells are harder to crack. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/4 "2014-07-16T00:04:50Z")
We get white eggs from our Ancona, off white eggs from the Golden Wyandotte and brown eggs from the Isa Browns. I haven’t noticed any difference in the strength of the shells. They all have the same diet and access to shell grit so I wouldn’t expect dramatic differences between them. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/5 "2014-07-16T00:15:18Z")
In RI, there used to be a radio ad with the jingle, “Brown eggs are local eggs/and local eggs are fresh!” From which we may infer that the Rhode Island Red lays a brown egg. I haven’t noticed a relationship between shell color and frangibility. ---
**Author:** ![brainstall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@brainstall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brainstall)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/6 "2014-07-16T00:56:36Z")
My friend has a small flock of hens and I get eggs from her. They have access to an outdoor pen and a small barn and she supplements their chicken feed with lots of fresh goodies. I do notice that the eggs from her hens have much harder shells than store bought eggs, though haven’t noticed much difference between the brown eggs (many shades and I like lining them up in the carton from lightest to darkest) and the blue/green eggs from the Ameracaunas she has. This year she added some fancy hens that lay white eggs (with a lovely delicate pink shade inside the shells) and they seem a bit thinner shelled than the other ones. Though whether that’s related to shell colour, diet, age of the hens, breed or the conditions in which the hens are kept, I couldn’t say. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/7 "2014-07-16T17:31:26Z")
> [@susan](#): > > In RI, there used to be a radio ad with the jingle, “Brown eggs are local eggs/and local eggs are fresh!” From which we may infer that the Rhode Island Red lays a brown egg. That same jingle can be heard in CA, too. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/8 "2014-07-16T22:13:59Z")
Do you know the chicken variety that lays CA brown eggs? ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/9 "2014-07-16T23:25:58Z")
I used to have Rhode Island Reds (in California actually) and they tend to lay brown eggs. Also had Auracanas and they produce [beautiful blue/green eggs](https://www.google.com/search?q=araucana+eggs&client=firefox-a&hs=awu&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=3wjHU5P3KMqoyATysoCgCQ&ved=0CDsQ7Ak&biw=1876&bih=1020&dpr=0.9). Can’t say I’ve noticed a shell hardness difference between brown and white (or blue/green) eggs but IMHO non-factory farm chicken eggs definitely have a harder shell. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/10 "2014-07-17T02:47:36Z")
Yes, the Auracana eggs are lovely. We have no chickens, but many around here do. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/11 "2014-07-18T21:24:20Z")
Has anyone else ever experienced some form of racism whereby people charge more for white eggs than brown? Likewise when people sell to these merchants, they pay less for brown eggs than for white ones. I have a clear recollection of some movie or TV show in which someone brought some eggs into a female store keeper and she paid them less for their brown eggs than for their white ones. I remember now. It was that TV show starring Michael Landon - Little House on the Prairie. The lady storekeeper tried to take advantage of newcomers to the town by paying them less for brown eggs but she sold brown eggs for less money than white eggs. Does anyone else remember the incident I am describing? I hope that I got it right and did not mis-remember it. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/12 "2014-07-18T23:07:09Z")
> [@Charlie\_Wayne](#): > > Has anyone else ever experienced some form of racism whereby people charge more for white eggs than brown? > > Likewise when people sell to these merchants, they pay less for brown eggs than for white ones. > > I have a clear recollection of some movie or TV show in which someone brought some eggs into a female store keeper and she paid them less for their brown eggs than for their white ones. > > I remember now. It was that TV show starring Michael Landon - Little House on the Prairie. The lady storekeeper tried to take advantage of newcomers to the town by paying them less for brown eggs but she sold brown eggs for less money than white eggs. > > Does anyone else remember the incident I am describing? > > I hope that I got it right and did not mis-remember it. Whut? ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/13 "2014-07-19T01:59:45Z")
I’m fairly certain that I remember an episode of Little House on the Prairie in which the female lead of the show (Laura Ingels) took some eggs that her chickens had laid and took them into town to sell them at the general store. If you recall the family that ran that general store were the villians of that show and in this case, the mother of that family tried to pay Laura substantially less for her eggs than the gowing rate based on the fact they were “brown”. But … later when Laura went to buy some eggs from that same store, the owner did not offer her the eggs for a lower price than white eggs which revealed that she was trying to take advantage of people. The point was that it was shown to be unfair to charge a diff price for brown eggs than white eggs. I do hope that I got the details of this story correct. The point may have been that the owners of the general store were just a bunch of cheats. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-eggs-light-shell-color-thinner-shell/693212/14 "2014-07-19T10:15:28Z")
> **["Little House on the Prairie" Country Girls (TV Episode 1974) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0632989/faq?mode=desktop#.2.1.15)** > > "Little House on the Prairie" Country Girls (TV Episode 1974) on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more...