I'm not a chicken keeper but I have a question...

[theyoungvisiter]

... which I thought you might be able to help with.

What makes the colour of egg yolks vary so much? Is it the type of chicken or something in the feed?

I just wondered because I often buy Clarence Court eggs. Their Burford Brown eggs have beautiful chestnut coloured shells, but the yolks are really pale, sort of pale primrose.

Whereas their Old Cotswold Legbar eggs have bluey-pastel coloured shells, and the most amazing deep orange yolks the colour of cayenne pepper.

Anyway I was pondering this ineffable question as I whipped up some scrambled eggs today, and I thought "the chicken keepers will know!"

It's down to a number of things.

The breed of chicken determines egg shell colour and yolk colour to a lesser extent.

Chicken fed with corn have yellower yolks and chicken fed plenty of greens also lay deeper yellow eggs.

Chickens who free-range, eat loads of greens and get corn have the yellowest yolks of all in my experience!

And to add to what Doodlez says, you can often tell the colour of a hen's eggs (they are only chickens before they have laid ) by the colour of its ears.

I kid you not!

Oh I love mumsnet!!!!

Makes me laugh, makes me cry!!!

Ahh! I knew you would know

The legbar ones also have lots of double yolks too, which is something I hadn't come across for years until I started buying this brand.

Last week I had a carton of 6 eggs and every single one was a double. It was quite exciting! I wondered if there was a particularly over enthusiastic hen on duty that day.

(Me? Sad? What do you mean?!)

NO!!!

The ears - is that really true? Or are you pulling my wing leg?!

Be careful, because I will go around repeating this "fact" to all and sundry and one day someone will come up to you and say "I hear you are a chicken keeper, did you know that you can tell the colour of a hen's eggs by its ears?"

And you will KNOW!

Thats for us to know and you to find out!

so how do you know if it's a double yolker then - four ears?

4 ears!!!!

I've kept chickens/hens for how ever long and NEVER had a double-yolker. Bone idle wee girls I have!

Only got two of them at the moment (Silkies) and BOTH HAVE GONE BROODY TOGETHER!!!! I had to BUY eggs yesterday!

oo I would love to keep chickens... our garden is too small unfortunately.

I am thinking of buying DH a goose egg for CHristmas to go in his stocking (well wrapped of course).

Do you think he will be
a) surprised
b) delighted
c) non-plussed
d) all of the above?

He'll think you've lost the plot!!!!!

Actually, I think you may have lost the plot!

but I still might - just to see his face. hee hee.

A bit early to find a goose egg - ours don't start laying until February - its more Christmassy to have the whole goose. My Grandad used to get a whole one in his stocking every year, plucked and trussed. Took me years to work out where it came from!

apparently Waitrose have 'em. Don't ask what they do to the poor geese to get them to lay early - probably showed them Valentine's day cards and squeezed very hard!

I loooooove goose. It's my favourite Christmas meal, but we are going to MIL's this year so it will be turkey all the way. (Boring IMO). I am not sure I could fit a goose in DH's stocking anyway, his feet are not that large!

They'll have the geese indoors with artificial daylight, probably, to kid them its spring.

oh! I just googled and you are right, they are not in, I was mislead by the marketing.

It says "Seasonal free-range goose egg" which I interpreted to mean seasonal in the sense of Christmas season.

Turns out they mean only available seasonally. Ie from March.

So no "seasonal" goose egg for Dh. He would probably be vastly relieved, if he only knew!

Your garden is never too small for hens

I am currently waiting for my legbar to come into lay. She's still tiddly and hasn't got much of a red face yet, and the face furniture (combs and wattles) has yet to grow, so I'm thinking maybe Feb. BUT her ears have a lovely blue tint to them, so I'm excited about the colour of the eggs - she's a dear little thing, wonder if she'll do double yolkers for me!

My big girls are going through moult, so it's few and far between but my speckledy lays gorgeous brown speckled eggs, so pretty!

I had a silkie & a Silkie cross - & got oval peach eggs & round pink ones (well they were white/cream with a hint)

I got a cream legbar & get lovely (tiny) blue eggs & my malaysian (something or other) lays little brown ones - they are so cute

well from my (purely eating, not keeping) research I can now tell Cotswold Legbar double yolkers at a glance quite accurately.

They are not necessarily the biggest eggs, but tend to be quite long and skinny, more oval than round if you know what I mean?

I have taken to having a peep in the carton at the supermarket and trying to pick one with likely candidates

Sadly I have no idea how that translates to hens. Maybe look for a long skinny chicken?!

Please Bramble, don't tempt me . We live in an inner city London first floor flat with a tiny square of garden accessed by steps. There is barely enough room for the cat poo and the DSes sandpit, honestly. If I added a chicken the poo feathers would really fly!

But when I move to the country... [sigh]

So, have you worked out if the ear thing is true yet?

Double yolkers are twins

I'll let you know when my blue eared girl starts to lay.

keep planning daisy (youngvisiter!)

We keep hens and I think my garden is too small. We do not have a single blade of grass left The chooks are eating spinach to get their greens, now that all the grass has gone.

yes, the ear thing is true.

red ears have brown shells and white ears have white shells (you can't tell how brown, though and ti does very a lot).
except for arucanas, which have white ears and have blue or green shells (but only 80% of them. the others will lay white eggs)

I love blue eggs, we borrowed a cram legbar as a broody in the summer and I got so excited when she started laying again. might be next on my wish list.
pure white ears, eggs are the best though. hmmmmmmm, my flock is getting a bit small. anyone knoe what colour my black silkie will lay?

Sock - I've got one blue and one gold Silkie - both lay very pale cream, small, oval shaped eggs (the ends are nearly pointed!). The eggs look ridiculously small next to hybrid eggs but oddly, they contain a really decent sized yolk in them!