The Egg Nutrition Board’s opinion notwithstanding, brown eggs are NOT just laid by chickens with red feathers. When I was young we had several hundred White Rock chickens, whose feathers were–WHITE, and their eggs BROWN.
Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh.
Hello WKRamsey. Is this the article you are commenting on? Link.
I eat the brown eggs, and my wife is one happy woman, IYKWIMAITYKWIM…
I believe that comment was a joke. The actually quote was “White shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and ear lobes. Brown shelled eggs are produced by hens with red feathers and red ear lobes. There is no difference in taste or nutrition between white and brown eggs.” The “ear lobes” should be a giveaway that this was a joke.
I don’t know, Dex. If the earlobe thing is a joke, it’s a joke that brings up tons of serious-sounding hits to a google search. This picture, for instance, shows chickens having earlobes, although the associated photograph looks to me like it’s merely a differently-colored section of feathers and not a fleshy piece of cartilage like people have.
It’s not a joke; the earlobes, in fact, are the reliable indicator of egg color. The White Rock hens in the OP are an offshoot of the popular Plymouth Rock breed, which has several color variants – all of which have red earlobes and lay brown eggs. So it might be said that White Rocks are white, but they’re not a white breed.
IDKWYM 
Unless you’re whooshing, I believe there is a single dominant theme any time the acronym IYKWIMAITYKWIM, and if I have to spell it out for you, YouProbablyDon’tNeedToKWIM.
If you know what I mean and I think you know what I mean…
Fascinating. Live and learn; thanks for the info.
I know what IYKWIM means, I just don’t know what he means! “Eating the brown eggs”? What?
Never mind. I was just making a failed attempt at humor…
Actually, the feathers aren’t as much of an indicator of egg color as the earlobes are. Red leghorns, blue andalusians and black minorcas all lay white eggs. And have white earlobes.
I raise chicken,but I only have brown eggs.I have leghorns but I eat the them,because they lay white eggs.Brown eggs have a much better flavor to them,and the yokes are a orange color.But that just might be just the feed that I give them.I have 17 hens that give about a dozen a day.55 chicks that will be laying in about 2 months, and 50 more on the way here in a few weeks. I do not like white eggs. but the do bleach the eggs at the big egg farms.But they use a lot of chemicals to make the chickens lay a lit of eggs.I am just have country eggs from Tennessee…
Yes, there really is such a thing! I know this because we are lucky enough to have four “girls” who each lay eggs of different colours; white, light brown, dark brown and speckled and yes, green (these from Miss Hyacinth!). Okay, we named them, but as we have them for their eggs only and not their tasty flesh, I’m okay with that! Maybe that’s where Dr. Seuss came up with the idea for his book, “Green Eggs and Ham”.
Miss H is an Americauna and they are known for laying eggs of green, blue and pink. Not all from the same chicken you understand, that would be clever, but because of the variety in egg colour, they are often called Easter Chickens and are very popular in our local area come Easter.
We have not noticed any difference in the taste, although the yolk of Miss H’s eggs are a lot more orange. I’m not sure why I think this, other than I read it somewhere, but I am fairly sure these eggs do have a slightly higher, slightly different protein content than the others.
On the subject of chickens, did you know that it is possible for their feathers to turn grey under severe stress. Again, I know this because, having rescued a dog from the pound last year and set him free amongst our then free-range chickens, he proceeded to pin them to the ground and pluck out their feathers. No lasting damage thank goodness, and they are now confined to their own sizeable area for their own safety. In case you’re wondering, Miss Millie’s feathers did grow back a beautiful deep red and she seems to have forgotten the terrible incident!
Just came across this and thought I would add my 2 cents in…the breed of chicken will determine the color of the eggs. White Cobb chickens used by Tyson lay brown eggs. My 60,000 white Cobbs did, and that was just one set of chickens. I would get another 60,000 about every 62 weeks. But the brown shading was different (some darker brown and others lighter brown) among the chickens. So to say that white feathered chickens lay white is incorrect. We would also get what we called “Jelly eggs” which were eggs that didn’t even have shells.
As for the nutrition, the taste of FERTILE eggs are without doubt richer than those of chickens that were not raised with roosters to fertilize the eggs. In other words, if it was fertilized and could hatch then it was richer. If it was not fertilized by a rooster then it could not hatch and was less rich. People that never had fertile eggs and would take some of ours would come back to us commenting on how much richer it was. Hens will lay eggs without a rooster.
Also, fresh eggs will not peel when hard-boiled. It has to be at least a couple of weeks old to peel. Any farmer with chickens will agree with me on this as it is common knowledge among farmers that harvest their own eggs to eat. The eggs you buy in the stores are at least 3-4 weeks old by the time they get on the shelves. If properly refrigerated, they last a very long time. Sorry guys!! You can’t buy fresh eggs at the store!
For those who wonder what LayerFarmer is on about, Cobb is a very old and very large poultry breeder. They developed the White Rock chickens discussed above, and their website seems to say that all of their chickens are descendants of that original breed and the Vantress white Cornish rooster. White Cobb eggs vary from nearly white to brown, as befits their mixed heritage (and the fact that they’re broilers, not commercial egg-layers), but the mere fact that their feathers are white does not make them a white breed. It’s the lobes, I tells ya (except when it isn’t).