In article <
[email protected]>,
Frogleg <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 21:14:55 -0800 (PST),
[email protected] (Not Available) wrote:
>
> >Do brown eggs have tougher egg shells than white eggs?
>
> Eggs is eggs. The shell color has to do with the color of chickens that lay them, not any
> nutritional content, feed, or structure.
I pretty much agree with most of that, exept that many brown egg layers are at least free in a barn
and not in Battery cages. The feed tends to be slightly different too as if they are loose, the
producers are often going for the whole "organic" effect as it triples the market value of the eggs.
I disagree with your addition of "feed" not making a difference. That is FAR from true! It can even
affect hatchability if that is what you are after! Same goes for emus, and any chick health no
matter what the bird... Bad feed = unhealthy newborns providing the eggs hatch at all.
I'm no expert on commercial raising of eggs as strictly a food source, I'm just going by what I've
personally observed at a local egg ranch that I occasionally get flats of "checks" (faulted) eggs
for rilly cheap in the winter when my own chooks are low on production. I don't use lights and let
them moult naturally.
I've also seen the effects of cheap cattle feed on newborn emu chicks.
:-( Amino acid and especially mineral deficiencies are ugly and cause
high chick mortality from various conditions.
If they eggs cannot produce a viable chick, they are deficient in nutrients as a food source also.
Feed also affects egg flavor. As my birds are in a nice big roomy pen, but not free ranged, I add
alfalfa pellets to their feed and also toss garden weeds and compost into the pen. They love it and
it gives them a darker and richer flavored yolk. Makes them higher in vitamin A feeding them
greenstuff. The pellets are just convenient. And they like them.
Thin shells are also a calcium deficiency, hence the common practice of offering free choice ground
oyster shell in a gravel feeder. it DOES make a difference in eggshell thickness! I'd stopped doing
it for awhile and some of my older birds were turning up with paper thin shells... We added that
back to the feed, (mixed it in the feed rather than offering it free choice to get them to eat more
of it) and the problem resolved itself. Diet DOES make a difference.
Just my 2 cents as a poultry breeder. ;-)
Oh, and Oberon (one of my two emu roosters) went broody this week and is setting on 10 emu eggs...
<G> Wish me luck! Roast young emu at 4 months of age is to die for, and they still fit in the oven
at that age! Daddy raised chicks are so wild, they don't make good pets so are easier to harvest...
K
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