Time of Pigment Deposition in Brown Shelled Hen Eggs and in Turkey Eggs

THE PROBLEM THE rate of shell formation in the hen has been accurately recorded in the work of Burmester, Scott, and Card (1939). No attention has been given to the time of pigment deposition in brown shelled eggs as far as the writers have been able to determine. Fischer and co-workers (1923 (1925) have shown that the pigment in egg shells is a porphyrin and Klose and Almquist (1937) found the pink color of the membranes of white shelled eggs also to be a natural porphyrin. This study was made to determine the rate of deposition of pigment in the shell of brown eggs. MATERIALS AND METHODS Rhode Island Red females producing eggs ranging from medium to very dark brown in egg shell color were utilized for this investigation. The pigmentation of immature eggs, manually expelled from the uterus, was compared with that of eggs laid by the same hen . . .