Why would one of my Rhode Island hens eggs all of a sudden be white? The other two are still a lovely brown color, but one of them is laying white eggs. They are free range, I have no other chickens, could it be something she is eating? the shell is still hard and the eggs look fine when they are broken. Do I even need to worry about it?

-- Carol Koller (ckoller@netsync.com), October 20, 2001

Answers

My goldlink hens have had the same thing happen to them. If someone gives you a good answer why the egg color changes could you please let me know? Thank you. Cathy

-- Cathy Alcott (calcott@pressenter.com), October 20, 2001.

well ladies, get this...... my aracauna hen went from laying blue and green which she is suppose to lay, to an off white. almost cream color.go figure.

-- cody bansiter (urbusted@alltel.net), October 20, 2001.

Gosh, the same thing happened to my girls!! They all went to white or cream! Now, they are back to the colors. I haven't changed anything....go figure. In His Grace Sissy

-- Sissy Sylvester-Barth (iblong2Him@ilovejesus.net), October 20, 2001.

I have had it happen and I always thought it was the age of the bird. But as mentioned above one person had theirs go back to the original color...Well that blows my theroy our of the water.

-- grant (organicgrange@yahoo.com), October 20, 2001.

sissy, how long did it take for your eggs to go back to colors??

-- cody banister (urbusted@alltel.net), October 20, 2001.

One of my Auraucanas laid her first egg yesterday and it was long and slender and pale tan! The Golden Comets have been laying beautiful brown eggs for more than three months but this is the first egg from the Easter egg ones....and it wasn't colored....there was no egg from them today (so far)

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), October 20, 2001.

I have Australorps and Silver Laced Wyandottes that just started laying. I've had two cream colored eggs thus far! One, however, had a very thin shell. Is it possible the white eggs has something to do with thin shells? I give mine ground up oyster shells for calcium to avoid thin shells. I don't have an answer for you, but it seems many of us are experiencing the same thing. Oh, and I also get the occasional speckled egg.

-- amy (acook@in4web.com), October 20, 2001.

I have noticed a few cream or light tan eggs this week too. This has happened before, but after so many others mentioning it too I am wondering about weather. Nothing else has changed here, except that it is starting to get chilly.

-- Terri in NS (terri@tallships.ca), October 21, 2001.

In Croatia all I saw were brown eggs. They were sold ten to a carton and stacked in pyramids in the open air market. Did see one which was near white. The seller had it at the top of the pyramid. Made me wonder if white eggs wouldn't sell there as novelty items. Also made me wonder how they color eggs for Easter.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 21, 2001.

These are first year layers and have layed an egg EVERY day since they started in June. The white egg is not soft shelled, it's perfectly hard, but seeing as so many other people are getting the same thing happen I guess it's just one of those things! Thanks for all the replies though, makes me feel better that I'm not doing anything wrong!

-- Carol Koller (ckoller@netsync.com), October 21, 2001.

Just out of curiosity, did these hens all have their eggs change color at a certain time of year? Did they change color during or just preceding a molt? It would be neat to try to figure out if circumstances of color change were similar.

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), October 21, 2001.

Mine are not molting yet, but good thought. Only 1 out of 3 hens is laying a white egg and has been for 5 straight days. Will be interesting to see how long they stay white.

-- Carol Koller (ckoller@netsync.com), October 23, 2001.

Hey, Ken, about coloring Easter Eggs that start out brown. I don't know this for a fact, but I SPECULATE that they paint them (like Ukranian eggs) rather than dye them. If you don't know what a Ukranian egg looks like, I'm sure a search will turn up plenty of pictures and even instructions on how to do them! They're probably even on eBay -- or maybe eggbay? ;-)

-- Joy F [in So. Wisconsin] (CatFlunky@excite.com), October 23, 2001.