Amberlinks and brown eggs...or are they???

[MontyJ]

I found a white egg in the coop today. When I asked the chickens who did it, they all acted innocent. (Covering for their buddy I suspect.) I have 3 Australorps, 3 red sexlinks, and 6 amberlinks. All are supposed to be brown egg layers. I'm suspecting one of the Amberlinks...probably Tailfeathers. She doesn't have any golden color to her like most of the other Amberlinks have, and has a huge comb. I'll try to get a picture of her so maybe someone can identify just what she is.

She is in no danger from me for laying white eggs...just wanted to make that clear.

 

[lesa]

My chickens brown eggs- can be anywhere from very dark, to pinkish, to whitish. Was it dead white?

 

[897tgigvib]

Uh ohhhhhhhhhhh, one of your chickens may have a great grandparent who might not have been quite purebred.

Or else, someone's been getting into the coffeeMate creamer again.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The way the egg works, the egg goes through the hens internal laying factory and assembles all the parts. Once the insides are all put together, it goes to the shell gland where the egg shell gets put on. I forget how long its in there but it is a long time. After the shell is finally on, it stays a while longer and the hen puts the brown color on if it is a brown egg layer. The brown goes on top of the base egg shell. You can scratch the brown off or just look on the inside of the egg when you crack it to see the base egg shell color before the brown is added.

If the hen has an oops and pops the egg out early, it will not have all the brown it should have. Some of those can be pretty darn close to white. Yours are pullets just starting. Pullets oops a lot. So there is still a chance shell lay brown eggs after she debugs her egg laying program.

Or it could be like Lesa said. There are a lot of different shades of brown. Some of those can be pretty close to white.

 

[journey11]

Could be just a pullet thing. Their first eggs aren't very regular for size/shell/frequency anyway. Or you got a little something else mixed into the bin you chose her from at TSC.

 

[dewdropsinwv]

I got a picture of it. It's a white egg!! You cant get any more white than that.... looks like one from the store. I'll have MontyJ post it tomorrow, I'm just checking a few messages before bed. I'm working at our local sports mans club this weekend, they are having a state shoot make a little extra cash.

 

[catjac1975]

I separated my light egg layer Lavender Orpingtons in order to save eggs for hatching. I left a few Welsumer hens in with them, a chocolate brown egg layer. It was to take a little of the heat off of the Lavender hens at the mad mating of the roos. I knew it would be easy to tell the eggs apart because of the vast color difference. The Welsumers stopped laying , or so I thought, because the egg colors all became light. When the hatch was complete it was very clear that the Welsumers were laying all along but the dark eggs lightened up. The roo contributes nothing genetically to the egg color. SO WHAT HAPPENED?

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

anyone have white earlobes? i know that can be a sign of the possible white egg layer. my faverolles are supposed to have red lobes, but a poor trait that has been spreading in them is white or partially 'enameled' earlobes. some of my hens occasionally leave me a nearly white egg. most times its a pale brown with a white haze over them that doesn't fully wash off. makes them appear pale pink.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Actually the rooster contributes more genetically to egg shell color than hens. Theyve identified 13 different genes that can affect the brown on the egg. One of those is a sex link gene. That means the rooster gives it to his daughters if he has it but the hens do not give it to their daughters. So the rooster can contribute more than the hen to shell color.

That ear lobe thing does not work either. There is no genetic connection between ear lobe genes and egg shell genes. Most purebred chickens do follow that red ear lobe brown eggs/white ear lobe white egg rule, but not all do. And when you start crossing breeds there is no telling what you will get. Amberlinks are crosses. I've got a couple of crosses with white ear lobes that lay brown eggs.

If you look through Hendersons breed chart you can find a few breeds where the ear lobe thing is not true. The Penedesenca for example, very dark eggs and white ear lobes. Or the Phoenix, red lobes and white eggs.

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html#p

 

[bj taylor]

i'm just kinda wondering about that chicken with the big comb. might be a roo in the mix too