A Comparison of Selected Quality and Compositional Characteristics of Brown and White Shell Eggs

This paper compares interior quality measurements from three brown and three white shell commercial layer strains. Eggs were obtained during twelve 28-day production periods. Forty-eight eggs were randomly selected from each of the six strains during the last week of each period. Individual interior quality measurements were then taken. Significant differences were found in Haugh units, albumen indexes, and albumen pH measurements for the two color groups. The overall means for Haugh units were 85.11 and 81.92, for albumen indexes .1027 and .0938, and albumen pH 7.98 and 8.04 for the brown and white shell eggs, respectively. Yolk indexes for the shell color groups were .504 for brown shell eggs and .509 for white shell eggs and did not differ significantly.