Good Morning!

I have them in my fridge now... they taste just like any other egg.

I tried buying some shelled, hard-boiled eggs. They had no taste whatsoever - very odd.
 
I'm gonna take a WAG that those fiddy cent eggs don't taste quite the same as what I consider an egg.

The only time I am ever exposed to commercial eggs is th odd restaurant breakfast(and I mean odd). I usually end up laughing at the eggs.

It's why I consider a three egg breakfast hearty whereas you have six.
 
I think you should get two or three hens. Google it up 'backyard chickens'. They don't need much and they are pretty cool.
 
There is a big difference in quality. I read somewhere that a store bought egg might be upwards of a month old by the time it is sold.

An egg is an egg, if the hens are eating a similar laying ration. The difference is freshness.

Now, a real free range chicken's egg is something different. The yolks will turn a dark orange and will have a quite different taste.

Some people dont like them.
 
What they're fed I think makes quite a difference in the taste and nutrition of an egg. Also if I'm remembering correctly from reading it's not just feed but how they're kept makes a difference as well? Their morale affects the quality too I think.
 
What they are fed absolutely makes a difference. However, a lot of folks feed the same bagged laying ration that the big battery farms feed.

A chicken given the change to scrounge around will have different tasting eggs than one that is kept cooped up. Lots of chicken are kept in coops, with just a little more room than a battery hen. Those eggs will taste the same.

The real trick is to graze some good pasture with cattle or hogs, cover crops in particular, then let the chickens follow behind. They will pick through the manure, eat bugs, plants, hell...rocks,....that is a tasty egg!


But you are probably right, happy chicken make better eggs...no matter where they are.
 
It makes sense though to me, that the feed would be the biggest factor. Like you say.

I don't plan to free range these birds as much as my last ones. They'll get out but not just be free all the time. We will feed commercial pellet and scratch but also a lot of our own scraps, waste and whatnot.

It's true what you say about that yolk though. Now that I stop to think about it our neighbour we've been buying eggs from doesn't range their birds at all and while they're nice big eggs and still good, they lack that deep strong yolk like I recall from my last layers which were free ranged.
 
Sure. But chickens don't range far usually, espescially if they don't need to. Atleast mine didn't. I'm blessed here with no real predators because of my big dogs. Coyotes don't come in much at all and I've never seen a coon around my place either. Four barn cats, and four dogs keep the wild at bay around here.
 
Chickens are going strong. I'm getting 11-12 eggs a day off of twelve hens. So now I'm selling five or six dozen a week at four dollars a dozen and have all the fresh eggs I could ever eat. There feed will be around 25-$30 a month. So still a bit of 'extra' cash from my hobby.

I've got some pretty spoiled happy flappers going on.
 
Mine do right now. Some lay less but mine are high producers. I've read it takes 26hrs to make an egg so I don't know how they do it. But I have more fulll dozen days then only eleven egg days.
 
That's pretty amazing.

I love stealing their eggs. I've got everything sorted in my coop/run now so it stays quite clean. Most of my eggs I get are spotless right out of the nesting boxes. Often I'll crack a still warm egg right into the skillet. Fresh, fresh, fresh!
 
sounds good...I had to pick eggs up at the store this week...not getting my friendly free-range giftings since the dog killed 3 of Charley's chickens...durned dog...
 
That can be a tough one once they get a taste for chicken.

Part of why mine are staying 'free run' instead of free range. They get plenty of 'spoils' from the yard and table. But they stay safe and don't mess up my landscaping. I'm actually just finishing up a cool planter for their run where the 'greens' will grow up through a screen. So they can graze but not kill the plants.

Yes I'm a chicken nutbar now.
 
Don't know about the sunlight, but Charley gets less eggs in the Winter...not sure if that pertains to all breeds either.

The dog is trained for Bear...did in a big turkey too the day it got loose...back in his kennel 'til bear season now
 
I think I heard that sunlight affects laying. Is that so? Less in winter, more in summer.

Yes I believe it's more light that affects the lay rate than temperature. So this year I'm going to install some yard solar lights which will have the light source inside of the coop. We all know solar lights suck in the winter but I'm hoping they'll extend the lit time of day for them enough to keep egg production up to an acceptable level. Besides that I'll put a small aquarium heater inside of my five gallon pail/waterer and that should be it for winter. I've used heat lamps in the past, but I've been reading they don't really need any supplemental heat(full grown hens that is), and heat lamps are pricey ish to run for power and are the number one cause of burning down your coop.
 
Well my chickens are still going strong. I lost one chicken all year. She turned broody and the others starting going after her for her weird behaviour and pecking the hell out of her. My wife let her out to range on her own one day and she never came back. Worked out not bad.

I've been sick for coming on two weeks now. Bronchitis I think, with a nice cold/flu carrier. I can't recall ever being sick for this long before? Starting to grow old. It's really made the chimneys a lot tougher. Normally I lol at the amount of work involved or how 'hard' it is to access a rough. But over the last couple of weeks I've had a rough go of it up top. Coupl of not really dizzy spells but almost like vertigo? Where I really lose my sense of balance momentarily and have to focus hard to stay composed. Disconcerting when you're standing on a masonry chimney cap say.

Anyways such is life, just feeling whiny this morning. Hacking and spitting. I'm sure it'll pass soon enough.
 
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