Why are brown eggs more expensive?

That ad may have been stretching the truth. (6.00 / 4)

I had heard the ad, knew that different breeds of chickens laid different colored eggs (nothing to do with being local, unless New England chicken farmers cornered the market on brown egg-laying breeds at the time the ad ran), but never put much thought into the price difference.  Luckily, the Internet knows all things, and allowed me to locate the American Egg Board and its "Basic Egg Facts" page:

Shell: The color comes from pigments in the outer layer of the shell and may range in various breeds from white to deep brown. The breed of hen determines the color of the shell. Breeds with white feathers and ear lobes lay white eggs; breeds with red feathers and ear lobes lay brown eggs. White eggs are most in demand among American buyers. In some parts of the country, however, particularly in New England, brown shells are preferred. The Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire and Plymouth Rock are breeds that lay brown eggs. Since brown-egg layers are slightly larger birds and require more food, brown eggs are usually more expensive than white.

Emphasis added.  Those "basic egg facts" may answer your question.  

Wish I knew the answer to your petroleum question, but I expect the answer is hidden in a whole different kind of shell game . . .

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by: shack @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 13:47:47 PM CDT

urban eggs (6.00 / 4)

Totally off-topic but it might be of interest to someone.

A few years before my Dad died, we were in the store buying groceries and I was picking up some eggs. He asked if I knew why some were brown and some were white. Of course, as a suburban kid, I had no clue. So he went on to explain the different breeds and which produced the different types of eggs. After he was done, I asked how the heck he knew that - he grew up in Detroit and had never spent much time on a farm, as far as I knew. Well, during the depression his family raised chickens in their tiny yard so they didn't have to buy eggs, plus they produced the occasional chicken dinner. So he knew all of the hen types and their egg colors.

The challenges of my own childhood pale in comparison to his.

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by: Jasiu @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 18:09:19 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Heh. (6.00 / 4)

Coincidentally, I'm putting up a chicken coop and planning to order my first birds in February so I can raise a laying flock in my backyard next spring.

And they'll all be brown egg layers. The so-called heavy or dual-purpose breeds like Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Wyandottes, or Jersey Giants are large, calm, friendly nonflyers, and average 7 to 10 pounds at full weight. They're the kind of birds raised by households who wanted to raise their own eggs and meat, and they all lay a good number of light to dark brown eggs, depending on breed.  Most of these breeds will also set on their eggs if allowed and raise their own chicks unassisted.

The Mediterranean breeds (Old English Games, Majoricans, and Leghorns) which lay white eggs are lighter-bodied, flightier, and have a better feed-to-egg conversion ratio but are lousy eating birds. They're not ideal for the home flock because they're more excitable and harder to handle and most will not set on eggs or raise their own offspring because the instinct has more or less been bred out of them.

More than anyone here ever wanted to know about chickens, I'm sure....

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by: Sharoney @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 21:54:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Be sure to read "The Egg & I" (0.00 / 0)

by Betty MacDonald.  I'll be interested to hear your "compare and contrast" book report next spring! :)

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by: Laurel @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 23:04:22 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

p.s. on backyard birds (0.00 / 0)

a friend has a handful of chickens that roost wherever they please in her back yard.  she claims they're great for keeping down the insect population.  on the other hand, they can be tough on the garden...

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by: Laurel @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 23:06:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

my mother (5.00 / 1)

loves to tell me about how my great grandfather grew chickens during the depression to feed the family and offset his income by selling eggs to his neighbors. He also had a relatively small yard, living in an urban area.  

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My thoughts are mine and mine alone. They should not be considered representative of any other organization, group or person - save me.

~Ryan.

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by: Ryepower12 @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 00:58:32 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

AND: Aricauna chickens lay blue eggs! (0.00 / 0)

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by: MCRD @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 05:39:58 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

"blue butt" wolf spiders (0.00 / 0)

you'll be interested to know that many species of wolf spiders cover their egg sacs with a bluish silk.  since wolf spiders carry their egg sacs with them, usually grasping them with the spinneretes, they're sometimes referred to as "blue butt" spiders by people that mistake the egg sac for the abdomen.  look for these beauties gamboling across fields and other open areas on sunny days. :)

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by: Laurel @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 12:23:05 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

egg shell color has no connection with (5.00 / 1)

egg quality or freshness.  why are brown eggs more expensive?  because ad campaigns have convinced people or reinforced their incorrect perception that there is something intrinsically more wholesome about brown eggs.  not true.  this has probably been one of the best marketing gimmicks ever.

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by: Laurel @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 18:27:38 PM CDT

Ever seen X-L white eggs? I never have. (0.00 / 0)

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by: MCRD @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 05:41:07 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

i've honestly never looked! (0.00 / 0)

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by: Laurel @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 12:01:39 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Jingle (0.00 / 0)

I still remember the jingle...

"Brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are fresh."

Kate Donaghue, volunteer.

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by: Kate @ Sun May 18, 2008 at 20:59:36 PM CDT

Green eggs are the best (2.60 / 5)

and sperm, I think the saying goes

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by: they @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 01:31:20 AM CDT

oil (0.00 / 0)

This poll misses the most obvious answer: Because the dollar is worth less.

There are many reasons why oil is more expensive, primarily that the amount the word can produce isn't keeping up with the amount the world would want to use at a lower price.  But by far the biggest factor in the price of gas at the pump in the US going up so much in the past year, is the weak dollar, as far as I can tell.  Peak oil hit us several years ago, but the gas price spike here has been extreme because of the lower relative value of the dollar, more recently.

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by: Cos @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 07:03:05 AM CDT

And why is the dollar so low? (0.00 / 0)

Is it the fact that our federal government continues to print more of it than our economy deserves?  Exploding federal deficit?  Historically low interest rates?  Record Trade deficits?

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by: JoeS @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 07:34:15 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

All except the first one (0.00 / 0)

printing money doesn't have much to do with it anymore

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by: CentralMassDad @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 09:09:57 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's another part... (6.00 / 1)

how much S-D of oil and how much S-D of dollars?  Here's a chart:

In euros oil has gone from 30 to 70 since 1/1/2001.  In dollars oil has gone from 30 to 110 in the same time period.

The price of oil in euros has gone up by more than 100%.  The weak dollar has added another 50% to that.  So, how much is S-D of oil and how much is S-D of dollars?  I think more is due to oil, roughly by a factor of two.

Now, is it supply or is it demand?  That's a question that just doesn't make sense -- each of the two curves are meaningless alone, and movements of either one can impact price and quantity equally effectively.

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by: stomv @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 07:51:31 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

chart supports what I said (0.00 / 0)

The price of oil in euros has gone up by more than 100%.  The weak dollar has added another 50% to that.

That's misleading.  You're taking the rise in the euro price in, then taking that as the base figure for the "other 50%", so you make it seem as if the extra price due to the weak dollar is half as significant.  In fact what the graph shows is that the price of oil has gone from about 30 to 110 in dollars, an increase of x 3 2/3, and from about 30 to 70 in euros, an increase of x 2 1/3.  Or in other worse, it has gone up about 133% in Euros, and about 266% in dollars: twice the increase.

(The fallacy, or at least the misleading aspect of your statement, comes from the fact that if you increase by 100% you now have 200% of the original, and another 50% of that is another 100% of the original).

One other thing you'll note in that graph is that the big divergence between dollar and Euro prices is more recent than the increase in oil prices in general.  At first, oil prices were increasing but the dollar and euro were staying fairly close, then they started to diverge at a higher rate even though oil prices were not increasing at a higher rate (in fact, there was a dip, and they're now only a little higher than two years ago).

This all supports what I said:  The main reason oil prices have increased overall is that world production can no longer keep up with the amount the world would want to use at a lower price (in other words, we hit "peak oil", several years ago).  But the biggest factor in the price of gas in the US going up in the past year (I could say two years) is the weak dollar.  Before that, the price of oil was going up but the price of gas at the pump in the US was not going up as fast; in the past couple of years, the price of oil hasn't increased much, but the price of gas at the pump in the US has shot up very significantly.  That's because of the dollar.

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by: Cos @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 15:36:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I make it seem... because I think it is (0.00 / 0)

In a baseline of euros, oil has gone up 133%.  If the dollar had tracked the euro precisely, we'd be paying 133% more for oil.

So far so good?

Now, throw in the movement of the dollar... its gone from roughly .93 to 1.57 -- an increase of 68%ish.  So, where am I going wrong?  The euro v. dollar has added a 68% premium... but the commodity in euros has gone up 133%.  That smells like the lions share of the movement is S-D for oil, not S-D for $.

in the past couple of years, the price of oil hasn't increased much

Nonsense.  In the past year the price of a barrel of oil in euros has gone up 50%.  Even if you look at the peak before the trough, the price in euros has gone up between 15% and 20%; in dollars its gone up 20%-25%.  That's not a substantial difference for consumers.

There's no question that the price we're paying hurts more because the euro has been preferred over the dollar in the past eight-ish years.  But even if you "divide out" the dollar to look at euro prices, the price of oil has still gone up 133% while the euro has outpaced the dollar by 68%... and in the last year the price of oil has spiked more than 50% in euros.  The weak dollar is icing on the cake, but the cake is simple S-D of oil.

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by: stomv @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 16:18:13 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I don't think so (0.00 / 0)

I think the stats you're using are still misleading, for the same reason.

In the past couple of years, the price of oil dipped a bunch, then came back all the way out of that dip and a little further.  The total increase since the previous peak is nowhere near the increase we've seen in the price of gas since then, IIRC.

However, overall, the price in dollars has gone up twice as much as in euros.  You're hiding that by playing with the numbers, but the graph shows it clearly.  The weak dollar is clearly a huge factor.  And since it's disproportionately a bigger factor in the past two years than the previous, although a lot of the oil price rise was happening in those previous years, I think it's a much more important portion of explaining why the price of gas at the pump in the US has gone up more recently.

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by: Cos @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 16:36:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Neg (0.00 / 0)

First, distinguish between the international price of oil and the American price of gasoline.  They're very different markets, with different supply chains, regulation, inventory stock, etc.

The price of gas in the US is a function of the price of oil, the time of year, taxes, gasoline stocks, and refinery capacity.  How much is oil and how much is the rest of it?  Dunno.  Clearly the price of oil plays a large role, and I'm sure economists love to come up with correlation coefficients between gasoline and crude.

As for the "lies and statistics" back and forth, my instincts are that you've got to disassociate from the currency first.  If you're going to peg high prices on the changing value of the dollar, than why not ask the question "What if the value of the dollar hadn't changed?"  If you ask that question, you come up with an increase of 133%.  That's how much more you'd be paying if the currencies didn't move in opposite directions, so that ought to be your baseline.  This idea is corroborated by the reality that over the same time period, the euro gained 60ish percent on the dollar.

Want to explain what's happened in the past few years?  The euro has gone from 1.35 to 1.57 in the past 12 months... an increase of 16%.  The price of gas has gone from $3.04 to $3.613 -- an increase of 19%.  So, at first glance, it would seem that the euro has tracked with the price of gas.  But, the price of oil a year ago was roughly $60, and it's now well over $100.  So, you've got oil going up over 80% in dollars, the dollar weakening 16%, and the price of gas going up 19% [all in nominal dollar baselines].

My guess for recent price increases: combination of summer surge, speculation, and refineries stretched thin.  I don't doubt that the euro v. dollar is part of that, but it doesn't make up most of the price increase of oil, and the gasoline supply chain adds enough of its own complications [not to mention supplementary goods like ethanol] that I don't see how  you can attribute the euro over all other factors in the near term.

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by: stomv @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 16:57:33 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

misleading stats (0.00 / 0)

han why not ask the question "What if the value of the dollar hadn't changed?"  If you ask that question, you come up with an increase of 133%.  That's how much more you'd be paying if the currencies didn't move in opposite directions, so that ought to be your baseline.

Right.  Exactly.  Whereas with the dollar effect thrown in, the actual increase for people paying in dollars has been 266% rather than 133%.  In other words, double the increase.  Now you'd be technically correct to say "that's 50% more than the baseline" but that is misleading.  What people actually see is that the price has increased twice as much as it otherwise would have.

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by: Cos @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 19:34:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

NO! (0.00 / 0)

It's not misleading.  It went up 50% more as it otherwise would have.  They're different effects and you're mixing them.

It's only misleading if you're set on mixing the two effects.  The effect of oil S-D brought the price of a barrel of oil up.  The currency S-D brought the price up an additional 50%.

Technically correct isn't misleading.  Technically correct is exactly the point.  Doing anything else is, well, technically incorrect.

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by: stomv @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 06:28:24 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

2 dozen fluffy chicks (0.00 / 0)

We recently bought 2 dozen mixed New England breed chicks and they are doing quite well.  Our gardens are organic and our water and heat systems have backups with manual pumping and wood heat.

Becoming more self-sustaining is a cost saving and pragmatic approach to the global insecurities of our economy and environment. It would be great to see every high school offer an environmental class on sustainability.  Our urban and suburban friends have plants, herbs/flowers/veggies growing in all sorts of nooks and crannies.  Some innovative businesses use space for more than the token "peace plant" or fish tank and really grow plants (O2!) - could this not improve all indoor environments?

Someone once told me to prepare for emergencies or disasters, just think about how things were done 3 generations ago.  Root cellars (food supply and rotation), eating seasonally grown food, solid construction with durable materials (non petro-based/chemical laden products) eg wood and stone.  Boil water.

Educational opportunities abound to integrate science (environment, green technology), history, math (construction, engineering), capitalism (sales, marketing) beginning with the question, "why are brown eggs more expensive?".  Pretty neat, eh?

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by: HeartlandDem @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 08:28:18 AM CDT

Totally irrelevant detail - ear lobes on chickens? (0.00 / 0)

An interesting discussion.  I had never seen brown eggs for sale in the grocery store before moving to New England.  I had actually wondered (briefly) if the white ones had been bleached - but am relieved to learn that is not the case.

The one thing I find puzzling in the explanation about the different breeds and their eggs' color is about the chickens' ear lobes.  Chickens don't have external ears the way mammals do - so no ear lobes. I suppose this is just referring to the area that a chicken's ear lobes would be IF a chicken had ear lobes - but it seems to be very imprecise terminology to me.  
(Okay,  I warned you it was an irrelevant detail.)

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by: keepin' it cool @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 08:59:36 AM CDT

bird lingo (0.00 / 0)

i'm not familiar with the ins and outs of describing chicken appearance.  however, for wild birds, people often use terms like "cheek", "mustache" or "ear" to describe areas of the body, patterns of feather coloration, location of feather tufts, etc. in ways immediately recognizable to humans.  this is never meant to imply the literal existence of those human structures on the bird.  It's just a handy shorthand used for ease of communication.  I hope this helps. :)

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by: Laurel @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 12:01:12 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Chickens make the world go round (5.00 / 1)

Ha, this is the last place I'd have expected to see this discussion, but what the heck!

We've had a backyard flock for several years now and I have to remind myself not to anthropomorphize them. I don't always succeed.

They have different calls for different needs, and the coop can sometimes be like a season of "Survivor," with one hen always getting voted off the island.

Whenever I've written about chickens, I've heard from a wide range of people who either have them or have fond memories of grandparents raising them. When you meet other people with chickens, it's always an interesting conversation--if you are not careful, you can get a little egg-centric!

http://thechickenwhisperer.blo...

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by: BJRoche @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 10:12:01 AM CDT

Brown eggs - small farms (6.00 / 1)

I don't know the economics in detail, but I think small farms tend to raise the dual-purpose birds that lay brown eggs, while white eggs tend to be produced on a larger scale.

I haven't seen any studied breakdown of efficiency of materials to eggs delivered to consumers.   I have a hunch the smaller farms are less efficient (think how many times the farmer has to drive to the feed lot, how many times to the market, for each 100 boxes of eggs); and the larger birds are less efficient; but that might be made up in distance for delivery.  But on the other hand, I suspect many of those commercial white egg producers are located close to the grain, and many of the bags of grain fed to Northeast birds are probably delivered from the midwest.  Might be more efficient to deliver the eggs than the grain.

We haven't replaced our Buff Orphingtons and Rhode Island Reds, and I rationalized that not by the trips to the barn at 5 below zero carrying water, or the various strategies we were contemplating for rodent control in a porous old barn, but because of the inefficiency of feed delivery compared with buying local eggs from someone running on a more efficient scale (80 birds rather than 8).  My wife thinks we should still be raising our own, but I've told her she and the kids are on their own if they want to!

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by: MassParent @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 10:21:39 AM CDT

Why? (0.00 / 0)

Maybe it is because thery are brown. Huh! Not usual!

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by: floabnndi @ Mon May 19, 2008 at 22:03:47 PM CDT