Eggs...finally!

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Sonya

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My Rhode Island Reds are finally pulling their weight and laying some eggs...exactly 6 months old. We haven't eaten any of the eggs yet, but it is so cool to go out and open the egg door and walla....eggs! The eggs seem alittle small, but hubby claims they will get a little bigger since the chickens are so young still. I'm going to cook them up on Tuesday (the eggs, not the chickens
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)..I'm interested in seeing if they taste any different than store bought eggs. I've never had "fresh" eggs. Those of you with chickens, do you think they taste different...better?
 
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COOL!

None yet for me - I still keep hoping
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Congrats!!

It is very eggciting to find those first eggs. Mine too laid small eggs to start. I think it was only a matter of days before they were normal sized. I don't notice a difference in the taste of fresh vs store bought eggs. It's so cool to get up in the morning and feel like having scrambled eggs and just go outside to the hen house and get fresh ones!

One thought.......fresh eggs are much harder to peel when they are hard boiled. If you want to make deviled eggs, they're gonna be a mess.
 
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Every thing fresh is better than store bought. Egsfrom a store have been sitting in cold storage forweeks andlost all flavor. You wo't believe the difference. Even for cooking with.
 
If your chickens get to "range" outside of the coup they yolks will be a wonderful bright yellow. If they are confined the yolks will be a paler shade of yellow the same as store bought eggs. The difference is caused by the diet of bugs and grubs the chickens scratch from the ground. PS, The bright yellow ones tase much better.
 
justaboutgeese said:
If your chickens get to "range" outside of the coup they yolks will be a wonderful bright yellow.  If they are confined the yolks will be a paler shade of yellow the same as store bought eggs.    The difference is caused by the diet of bugs and grubs the chickens scratch from the ground.  PS, The bright yellow ones tase much better.
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Ya that about sums it up. But just knowing that the eggs are from your chickens makes them taste better
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You guys are gonna think I'm nuts!
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But for as many years I've been raising and selling chickens and eggs....I don't like eggs!!!!
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But then if I'm out camping or eating eggs where the window is open or any kind of fresh air will hit me...the eggy taste is even more amplified and gags me to no end!!!! I prefer store bought eggs if I have to eat them as they don't taste as strong to me. The brown eggs my hens lay definitely have an egg taste and customers love that
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....the milder for me the better!
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My banty hens lay a tiny egg and they are milder than the brown eggs...and I don't mind them as much. If I get a once in a blue moon urge to eat an egg....it has to be VERY doctored up with onions, green peppers, cheese, lots of salt and pepper to drown out the taste!
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And the eggs do get bigger as time goes by. I love collecting them and bringing 'em in...just don't like the taste.
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Hi NEIGH bor:

Prepared to be HOOKED on home grown eggs. The yolks are ORANGE, and taste totally different than those anemic store bought ones.

How many hens did you get? Pretty soon you will be feeding the extras to the dogs, cats, neighbors etc. etc. etc.

They will slow down or almost stop when winter hits unless you put a light bulb in the chicken house and keep it on so they get a 12 hour work day.
 
Fresh eggs are so much better then store bought!! They have so much more flavor. Our chickens were free ranging. They would roost in the barn at night. Over a 3 week period something got in and killed them all. I really miss them and their eggs. We were getting 10-12 eggs a day. Ended up giving lots and lots away to friends and family!!

Fresh eggs are hard to peel when they are boiled. A friend told me to put about a tablespoon of vinegar in with the water when you're boiling them. It really made a difference and the eggs were much easier to peel.
 
How much room is needed to make a difference between being cooped up and free range?

I was looking at the Farmtek catalog, and in their description for one of their larger chicken pens, they talked about it allowing for free range...is this just creative ad copy, or is free range a relative term?

I always assumed that free range was just that -- not penned up at all. Here in coyote country any truly free chickens would just become a snack, and so I'm thinking of using a large dog run to protect them. So, do you think a 20x20 pen set on dirt will be enough room to make a difference in taste?
 
You can just turn the chickens loose and they will come back to the coup at sunset or shortly before. All you need to do is remember to close the door when you check the animals. I will get flames for this but on the intellegence scale (according to Cornell University) chickens are pretty stupid but rate higher than horses. Darn where is that flame proof suit.
 
You can just turn the chickens loose and they will come back to the coup at sunset or shortly before. All you need to do is remember to close the door when you check the animals. I will get flames for this but on the intellegence scale (according to Cornell University) chickens are pretty stupid but rate higher than horses. Darn where is that flame proof suit.
No flames from me, I believe they are smarter than horses.

I have a type of pen that you move daily, (it is on wheels and pulleys) the inside is 2 story, the bottom part is where their feed is and automatic waterer, then they take a ladder to the 2nd story to roost - there are 2 roosting poles (there is plastic mesh on the floor of the second story) and 3 nesting boxes that are totally enclosed and the floor of those are at a slant and the eggs fall down toward the back were there is a door from the outside to collect the eggs. Also second floor has a mineral feeder (oyster shell) and a grit feeder. From the bottom floor there is a small mesh wire enclosure that goes outside and is removeable. When we are home, we remove the wire outside enclosure and let them free range...about an hour before sunset, they all head back to the pen and go up and roost, then I attach the wire enclosure so nothing can get to them. Also the roof of my pen slides back to fill all feeders. We have tons of coyotes and raccoons here and so far no problems (knock on wood), I'm sure if I left them out all night, some would be MIA, but I just make sure they are closed up at night.

I love the pen, it is called a "Henspa"...we purchased it, it was like a kit, you just put it together, it was very pricey, but we had no idea how to build a good chicken coop and we like the idea of moving it so the chickens aren't in their poop all the time and I'll tell you what - their poop makes the grass very lush, as long as it doesn't get overloaded w/pooh and the pen is moved daily. Now that we know the set up, hubby is going to build one similiar to it next year and we are going to get some bantams for showing.

I have 10 chickens (7 rhode island reds, 3 Americaunas)...I really enjoy the chickens and they are pretty smart. They follow me all around the place when I am doing chores. They know I am the "food lady". They will eat ANYTHING! I feed them meal worms from my hands and I will sit on the ground and they will come up on my legs, in my lap and take the worms.

I always assumed that free range was just that -- not penned up at all
That's what I would think, but they would still have to have a safe place where predators can't get to them. I consider mine - partial free range , since when I am at work or not home I keep them locked up. When I am home - they go wherever they want, including on my deck and devour my flowers!
 
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Now Sonya, you're not wasting that great fertilizer on grass are you? Chicken manure works wonders in your garden, and is a nice addition to the mini poop. People pay good money for that stuff!

Thanks for the info...I'm such a wuss. I can't stand the thought of exposing any animal to predators...I'd be hopeless as a farmer!
 
Remember that chicken manure is "hot" and can burn some plants........

Our hens used to free range all day and back in lock-down at night.
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I adore the biddies when they hatch, love to collect eggs....rarely eat the eggs!! So, I ended up feeding family & friends the eggs. Sure loved to see the chickens and collect the eggs
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Kids grew up and out...empty house, stopped keeping chickens.
 
I had 6 hens who laid 6 eggs a day that equated to 14 dozen a month too much for just the two of us so I'd take them to work and sell them for $1.50 a dozen--just told those who wanted them they needed to provide a carton.

We had a couple that would produce double yolkers on a regular basis and once even had a quad
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That was the biggest egg I've ever seen in my life and I'm so surprised it didn't get stuck. Never had one get egg bound but some of them were huge. We had one hen that would purposely break eggs and eat them so we had to put her in a separate pen. Once they learn that you can't break them of it.

Nothing like fresh eggs.
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