The Relationship of Egg Shell Color to Hatchability in Some Brown Egg Laying Breeds

MANY studies have been conducted on hatchability but few workers have investigated egg shell color in brown egg laying breeds as it might be related to hatchability. Benjamin (1920) using chalk-white, cream-tinted and brown-tinted as color standards found no relationship between these colors and hatchability in Single Comb White Leghorns. Phillips and Williams (1944) working with turkey eggs found that with the exception of chalk-white, porous shelled eggs, no differences in hatchability existed between dark-spotted and faintly-spotted eggs. Their numbers of chalk-white eggs (eight) were too small to be significant and also their eggs were classified as porous shelled which would tend to lower their hatchability as pointed out by Dunn (1923) and others. Jeffrey, in a communication to G. S. Vickers, states that in flocks where there is an extreme variability in egg shell color from a very light brown to a dark brown that the hatchability is not . . .