Eggs

[wills]

Store bought compared to our chickens eggs

[Wayne Dobbs]

Looks like ya got a rooster in with those hens wills! Also, are your chickens free ranging for some of their food?

Wayne

[wills]

No rooster, keep looking for one, I think maybe a Rhode Island Red. (I think a speck of something got into the bowl) They do run loose in the shop yard and we feed them too - not many bugs out this time of year.

[woody1]

Store bought compared to our chickens eggs
Ya really mean eggs ain't supposed to be pale and 3 months old? Aged is good isn't it? Actually we raise our own too, but we're down to two hens now and they don't lay much this time of year./ Regards, Woody

[C1PNR]

Oh, I LOVE to buy eggs at the grocery store. At least when I'm going to make hard boiled eggs. Older is better for them.

Having moved back to Boise I've lost my contact for fresh, brown eggs. Had a friend there who operated a very small egg farm. We don't eat nearly as many eggs now.

[waksupi]

I don't eat a lot of eggs, but when I do, they are free range chicken eggs. Those ones in the grocery stores are from chikens fed things you would rather not think about. Give me a cricket eating, **** picking, and grasshopper eating chicken anytime, for good eggs.

[Wayne Dobbs]

waksupi,

I totally agree with you on that. The only problem with free ranging chickens is that they are totally in the food chain of whatever predator happens to cruise by, chickens being so stupid and tasty and all!

I remember as a kid living in the country and losing chickens every week (it seemed like) to hawks, coons, possums, skunks, etc.

Wayne

[Lee]

and.......Cars!!! My wife, a one-time city girl, came home one day practically in tears. Asked what's wrong, she said she "thought she ran over the neighbors chicken." I asked why she thought that and she said, "Well, when I looked in the rear-view mirror, all I saw WAS A CLOUD OF FEATHERS!!!!"................. :shock:
We didn't speak anymore of that..................Lee ;-)

[Slowpoke]

Store bought compared to our chickens eggs


The old timers will tell you, a February egg is the best .

Are laying hens ( 9 ) are just starting back into production now. (Longer days)

The Guinea hens won't start laying till April, their eggs are mighty fine eating as well.

I open the door on the coop at day break and close it after dark rain or shine, if I couldn't let em run I wouldn't have em, they have 20 acres and they use it all, loose one now and again but it just keeps the others sharp, I learned many years ago to run a full blood GAME rooster with the hens and losses to hawks is zero, Full blood game hens make the best mama's as well, I keep a couple to just raise chicks.

good luck

[wills]

We only have two hens and they recently started laying again after their “winter break”. When I get around to it I want to get some more hens and put a light in the henhouse so they won’t quit laying in the winter.

[carpetman]

Wills---It's my understanding that hens quit laying when they are molting. Feathers and egg shells use about the same minerals etc,so when making new feathers they don't have the material for egg shells.

[Shepherd2]

Back in my Navy days the ship I was on was taking headed for the Persian Gulf. We loaded what seemed like 100s of 30 dozen count cases of eggs. With a crew of about 450 sailors and jarheads you need a lot of eggs. Of course those eggs had some age on them when we got them. We left Brooklyn in late August 1960 and returned in May 1961. When we got back to Brooklyn we were still eating those same eggs.

It was supposed to be a treat on some Sundays for the cooks to fix your eggs to order. About halfway thru the cruise when they cracked them on the griddle you had to look twice to tell the yolk from the white. Still they were better than powdered eggs.

I still think about those eggs when I crack open a fresh egg with that bright orange yolk.

[carpetman]

Shepherd2---In the Navy it was a treat for the cook to fix your eggs to order. In most Air Force chow halls----urr uhh new terminology nowdays they are aerospace dining facilities----anyways fixing the eggs to order is an almost everyday deal. Breakfast was a pretty good deal. In times past,if you were drawing rations pay and ate in the chow hall,you paid back the rate you were paid for the meal. Breakfast would be about a quarter. Now they add on a surcharge and you pay a lot more than the amount you were reimbursed.

[wills]

Wills---It's my understanding that hens quit laying when they are molting. Feathers and egg shells use about the same minerals etc,so when making new feathers they don't have the material for egg shells.

I think they are done molting now, at any rate we are getting eggs At the old place I had a light in the hen house and got eggs pretty much year around. We used to crush up the old egg shells and put them back in with the feed, to replace the minerals, and also used to give them oyster shell.

[Scrounger]

Wills---It's my understanding that hens quit laying when they are molting. Feathers and egg shells use about the same minerals etc,so when making new feathers they don't have the material for egg shells.

Cats, sheep, and now chickens? A man for all seasons! Is there no end to your encyclopedic knowledge? :kidding:

[floodgate]

Wills---It's my understanding that hens quit laying when they are molting. Feathers and egg shells use about the same minerals etc,so when making new feathers they don't have the material for egg shells.

Catpetman:

Our chickens - a mixed batch, currently 21 hens and some of the Araucanas are 4-5 yrs. old, others less than 1 yr. - alternate between two 1/4 acre "pastures"; electric wire outside the fence at 6-1/2 ft. off the ground stops the lions and bobcats (I know because when I let the battery run down, they start coming in and scragging a hen or two), and locked into the henhouse at night. These hens don't seem to know the rules; they lay when they feel like it, with little relation to weather, moult status or whatever. Right now with 35* - 40* nights they're at their peak, 14 eggs (67%) yesterday evening. Those eggs sure are good!

floodgate

[wills]

One of the chickens and the trainees.

[Blackwater]

Do any of you save the necks and saddles when you wind up butchering them? Wish I had enough roosters to supply my fly tying needs. Wish I had a whole coop full of Dominecker roosters. Now THAT would produce some FINE bass bugs, streamers and brim flies! A little dye and I'd have any color, too! Ain't nothin' like seein' a great big ol' maw come up out of the water and completely surround and then engulf a big ol' deer hair bug!!!

[wills]

I’ve never done any flyfishing. It always seemed to be something requiring skill and intelligence, which I lack. I barely remember how to work a levelwind.

The two dark chicks are Aricunas, the three light ones are Buff Orpingtons, one a rooster. The inevitable Aricuna roosters should produce some nice plumage.

Apparently if you want to see a picture of a Dominecker, you have to search for a Dominique.
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/dominique.html

[Slowpoke]

Do any of you save the necks and saddles when you wind up butchering them? Wish I had enough roosters to supply my fly tying needs. Wish I had a whole coop full of Dominecker roosters. Now THAT would produce some FINE bass bugs, streamers and brim flies! A little dye and I'd have any color, too! Ain't nothin' like seein' a great big ol' maw come up out of the water and completely surround and then engulf a big ol' deer hair bug!!!

You need to find out where they fight roosters in your area.

More better for you is to find out where the Filipinos and Mexicans fight roosters in your area because they use more off colored birds in their style of fighting, Doms , Blues, Pyles ect.

There is always a dead pile or barrel for you to pick thru .

good luck

[MT Gianni]

My neighbor cooked in the Army. For 5000 people on manuvers powdered eggs are a necessity. They would always have a couple of dozen fresh to throw in whole. "These are powdered, No Joe had some shells in his they are just bad cooks" was a preferred reply. gianni.

[wills]

Cure for powdered eggs is large quantities of tobasco sauce.

[fiberoptik]

The cure for any military cook is copitious amounts of Tabasco. The Marine cooks either;A. gave you a half-cooked egg, called an "over-easy", or B. gave you a rubber disk, yellow & white, good for playing frisbee. I just grabbed a bowl and gulped em down. Prefer totally raw to half-cooked. Ya should a seen the looks I got! [smilie=l:

[Four Fingers of Death]

I haven't got my chooks at the moment, but in the last town we lived in there was a couple who sold fruit and veg to the trade and opened for retail every tuesday. They had some fine produce. They used to get their eggs from a small farm that ran free range and specialised in biggggg eggs. We used to jokingly call them Emu eggs. Five dozen in a row, all double yolkers, this one spoiled the run and I had to take a pic of it. Mick.

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k228/4fingermick/Addnumseggs.jpg

They were mighty fine eating. My old chook shed is beyond repair, so I'll build a brand new one in the near future, that should see me out. One where I don't have to get on my hands and knees to steal the eggs an outside lid on the roosting boxes and tall enough that I can stand inside. Taaj Mah Chookhouse!

[twotoescharlie]

eggs== rooster bullets-hen farts

TTC

[Ivantherussian03]

Farm eggs are definitly better!

[Ivantherussian03]

As I recall, eggs were the one thing the military cooks did well. With or without tobasco:-D

[ron brooks]

One way to keep your egg production up in the winter is to feed the chickens warmed up tablescraps such as left over vegetables, breads, fruits. I would stay away from left over cooked chicken, just ain't right and don't forget mad cow disease.

Ron

[carpetman]

There was someplace that raised prized,thorobred,pedigreed or whatever chickens. Top of the line so to speak. They had a couple that laid 362 and 362 eggs per year. Anybody know if the one a day has been reached? (I'm sure if it has happened Wills will provide link). When Waksupi was a kid he thought he was a chicken. Family wouldn't tell him the difference as they needed the eggs too badly.

[Junior1942]

As I recall, eggs were the one thing the military cooks did well. Ours aboard ship, 1962-1966, did real well with cold cuts.

Edit: Our cooks.

[wills]

Didn’t realize eggs would keep four years.

[DLCTEX]

Just keep a light on all the time so they don't molt and go off production.

[DLCTEX]

When I was in the cook section in the National Guard , we did summer camps at Fort Hood the first three years as an artillery unit, Army brought us powdered eggs to cook, yuck! Then we changed to an engineer dump truck company and did camps near San Antonio and Austin and were given money to buy rations from Lackland Air Base, we bought real eggs. Quite a job to cook eggs to order for 300, but the troops appreciated it.
































then we

[montana_charlie]

Just keep a light on all the time so they don't molt and go off production.
I would be surprised if that works...and if it does, it would be very hard on the birds.
CM

[DLCTEX]

This method of keeping up production has been used for over 75 years and I have never heard of any detrimental effects. Top egg production will only last less than 2 years, then production falls off whether you use lighting or not. If you want production, you have to keep introducing new layers. Light manipulation is used to keep horses hair slick, blankets don't work, and to cause fish to spawn multiple times in a year, among the many applications on animals.

[wills]

I used to keep a light on all the time. I could see the hens up at night, eating.

[montana_charlie]

Pullets started during a time of year when the length of the daylight is decreasing during their growth will take longer than normal to reach egg-laying maturity.
So, artificial light can be used, in conjunction with a timer readjusted weekly, to keep them in an ever lengthening light condition until maturity.

Once maturity is reached, any other manipulation is just tough on the birds...no matter what effect you are wanting. If it also keeps them from molting...which I doubt...it must shorten their lives, as well.

Also, keeping a flock in a continuous laying condition will eventually result in those pallid yolks that make store bought eggs less desirable than farm raised ones.
The reason for that is not giving the birds a chance to rebuild their carotene reserves...which usually occurs during the molt.

Of course, if you don't feed any corn, your hens don't have any 'yellow' in them, anyway.
CM