Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Pete Vukovich <pvukovic1@yahoo.com>]

Good question. I consider an egg good if the white and yolk are well separated and 'firm', very few store bought eggs fit my definition. After a while the yolk gets doughy (sort of gooey), and the white too runny for me. I think with thicker shells airspace may form less quickly. I consider them inedible only when you start to get a a whif of hydrogen sulfide from them, or the yoke comes out hard. Ours were unfertilized eggs if that makes a difference, and our chickens were free ranged largely on bugs, scraps, and calcium scratch. With less scratch , and a little feed when they weren't laying.

--pete

--- On Wed, 1/19/11, John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net> wrote:

From: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Egg Production
To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2011, 9:49 AM

What is a good egg?

We find that if we hard boil one of our eggs of less than 3 days old the contents stick to the inside of the shell so that it is almost impossible to peel without ripping the egg to pieces. The older an egg the larger the air chamber gets and a large air chamber gives the contents a bit of leeway for expansion during boiling so that they don't have to stick to the shell.

Another thing is that a fresh egg has egg white that is quite stiff. If you break an egg in the pan for frying, the white will stay together and not run to fill the pan.

We have had customers in the past that definitely did want day fresh eggs or so they said and then complained that the whites were not runny enough and that upon boiling they were hard to peel.

The color of the yolk is not always an indication that you have a good natural egg. There exist artificial additives for chickens that will make the yolks very orange yellow.

 

Chickens like almost all birds need grit for their digestion. They have no teeth and grind their food (like grains) in their gizzard (stomach) with the help of little stones. We give ours cracked sea shells when we notice the egg shells becoming thinner than they should be. And they do all the grinding that is necessary themselves.

 

And for good egg storage in egg boxes, it is important that the blunt end where the air chamber is faces op top.

john

Sort of depends on the breed, and the chicken, less light is supposed to make them lay less often in general. Calcium supplements help keep the shells thick which makes them last longer, we found if they layed under shady brush most of the eggs were good for a week even in 70 or 80 degree weather as long as they got a good amount of calcium during laying season.



--- On Tue, 1/18/11, Emery Mitchamore <emitch@att.net> wrote:

From: Emery Mitchamore <emitch@att.net>
Subject: [Livingontheland] Egg Production
To: "Austinperm" <austinperm@yahoogroups.com>, "Living on the Land" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2011, 4:32 AM

In my first year with chickens, I've observed a serious variation in seasonal egg production.  Peak production was one egg per chicken per day.  Minimum was none for a few days.  Assuming that this is normal, I'd like some input on how to smooth egg availability.  How, other than refrigeration, does one preserve/store excess eggs?  Are there ways to manage a flock that enhances or delays egg production?

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.net



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