Want to check your knowledge of laying hens? Did you know that you can pretty much predict the color egg a hen will lay by examining the color of its ear lobes? Well… maybe. (Heck. I didn’t even know chickens had ear lobes.)
Kristen Aiken at Huffington Post wrote an entertaining and informative article, “The Real Reason Brown Eggs Are More Expensive Than White Eggs.” The post was written primarily for consumers, but it’s loaded with chicken factoids. And a ton of shameless, outrageous chicken puns.
If you still buy eggs at the supermarket you’ve probably noticed that white eggs are cheaper than brown eggs. Spoiler alert: it takes more feed to produce a brown egg than a white one, so that’s why the big producers raise hens that lay white eggs. Also white eggs are primarily used in various products, for the same reason: they’re cheaper.
What about any nutrition differences due to egg color?
So, if brown eggs are laid by hens that require more feed, that would make the eggs more nutritious, right? Wrong again. There’s no nutritional difference between comparable white eggs and brown eggs. If they’re both organic, or cage-free, or whatever other label you want to slap on an egg, a brown and white egg will have no significant nutritional difference
The above statement contains a dead link to an asktheexpert.custhelp.com article. But that site is not there any more. However, I was able to find the article here on Archive.org, dated February 25, 2018. Here’s the direct quote:
Do brown eggs have more nutrients than white eggs?
No. The color of the shell does not affect the nutrient content. There is no nutritional difference between a white and a brown egg. The breed of the hen determines the color of her eggs. Chickens such as the Leghorn, White Rock and Cornish, lay white eggs. Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, and Plymouth Rock lay brown eggs. Araucuna chickens in South America lay eggs that range in color from medium blue to medium green. Nutrition claims that Araucuna eggs contain less cholesterol than other eggs haven't been proven.
Kristen’s post also has a link to the BackyardChickens.com website. She cites a good article there titled, “Egg Color Chart - Find Out What Egg Color Your Breed Lays.” I wanted to check out whether they knew what they were talking about. That is, whether they said Golden Comets laid brown eggs. When I couldn’t find Golden Comets listed, I started to cry fowl-- I mean foul. But then I found them listed under “Red sex-links.” Now I never heard of that.
