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EGGS!!!

Haven’t bought supermarket eggs for years. We used to keep four hens which were a delight and produced more eggs than we can use.
Since they died we looked around and were surprised at how many others do the same, including someone who rescues, from the nearby ‘egg farm’, hens that would be culled but continue to lay for a couple more years. We buy them for £2/doz.
 
Poultry-keeping has mushroomed in recent years. Poultry shows that used to attract a few 100 enties now (if they were allowed, which they are not), are WAY bigger. For anyone who knows the Stafford agricultural show venue, the Christmas show pretty well fills the venue - 10 or so years ago it was a sparse collection in just the main hall.

Very many recent converts have not the slightest clue, it has to be said - cannibalism, predation by foxes or cats, scaly-leg, mites, egg-eating, and more. And now bird flu (restrictions).

Ex laying pen birds are a very poor proposition. If people want eggs from a couple of hens in the garden. They'd be FAR better with something like Sussex of RIR - traditional laying breeds, not so-called hybrid layers; the traditional breeds will lay almost as well as the commercial strains over a few years rather than just 1-2.

I eat next to no eggs and have no desire to try to sell any surplus, so I buy the cheapest from Tesco.
 
mjw said:
Haven’t bought supermarket eggs for years. We used to keep four hens which were a delight and produced more eggs than we can use.
Since they died we looked around and were surprised at how many others do the same, including someone who rescues, from the nearby ‘egg farm’, hens that would be culled but continue to lay for a couple more years. We buy them for £2/doz.
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I went for some 45 years without eating an egg. Then I was convinced by the view that the high cholesterol in eggs is no threat to human health- even if eggs are consumed daily.

Started off with farmer's market eggs- mostly organic. These seemed good. I only do boiled eggs, four minute boil for soft boiled.

Then, as a local LIDL is near, I tried LIDL organic eggs. I found these just as fresh as farmer's market, and also equal or often superior in taste. I thought I was being deceived by myself compared to LIDL. I then tried organic from ALDI- found them inferior- and also Tesco organic- again inferior. The LIDL best bet for me is the mixed sizes. I also read that large size eggs are not good for the chickens and not best for the environment.

Eggs which have a deep yellow orange hue (e.g. Clarence Court) are not naturally coloured. These chickens -are fed, I believe, marigold petals. This produces the colour. LIDL eggs are good yellow, with no induced extra colour, and after buying them for several years I can confirm that I have never found the white albumin watery- a sign of not fresh. P.S. I do not own shares in LIDL. They also stock plenty of junk- if you fancy it.
 
Egg size is purely down to the hen producing it - commercial strains have been selected to produce as many medium-sized eggs as possible, for obvious reasons. But things are not 100%. Pullet eggs (the first few eggs that any hen lays, a pullet being a hen that has not yet laid) tend to be small or very small. To suggest that large eggs are in some way not good for the hen is typical ill-educated nonsense.

Egg colour can be down to feding high maize diet - carotenoids from the yellow of maize end-up in the egg. More commonly, man-made carotenoids are added (carophyll - of which there are several colours - is one common trade name for them. Salmon and trout are naturally white-fleshed - in the wild they eat shrimps, when farmed they too are fed carotenoids.)

Organic egg colour could only be manipulated by using lots of maize or (very much more expensive) spirulina, which, although green, is actually one of or the richest sources of carotenoids known. In a genuine free-range system, grass contains enough carotenoids to add colour to egg yolks.

Yolks from birds with low ("normal") carotenoid intake are the colour of a pale grapefruit, as best as I can describe. Next time anyone notices an egg from any wild bird that has ended-up broken in their garden or wherever, just note the yolk colour.

The carotenoids have a very important function in eggs that are incubated, and are also beneficial to us humans. LOTS of information online.
 
I recall a podcast on which a senior bod from Iceland foods mentioned egg shell colour - completely irrelevant to egg flavour, apparently but UK buying public are largely convinced that a brown shell = better flavour so white shell eggs mostly go to manufacturing. The opposite holds true for the USA and anecdotally, my memory of shopping in USA bears that out.
Nowt so queer as folk.
 
mjw said:
I recall a podcast on which a senior bod from Iceland foods mentioned egg shell colour - completely irrelevant to egg flavour, apparently but UK buying public are largely convinced that a brown shell = better flavour so white shell eggs mostly go to manufacturing. The opposite holds true for the USA and anecdotally, my memory of shopping in USA bears that out.
Nowt so queer as folk.
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as a kid my mum used to buy eggs from the egg stall on Ridley Road market. They were all almost always white. A brown egg was a rarity and considered special
 
RIR are a very popular traditional breed in the UK - they lay a mid-brown egg.
IIRC, one or other of the white-feathered breeds - leghorns and the like - is as popular in the US - they lay white eggs.

The guy producing boxes of mixed colour eggs for UK supermarkets is, or at least was, doing very well from his selected but mongrel flock. Eggs were/are from white through every shade of brown and also green (green eggs are from the genes of Araucana, which have been incorporated into a few other breeds in recent times).
 
Vinny said:
Egg size is purely down to the hen producing it - commercial strains have been selected to produce as many medium-sized eggs as possible, for obvious reasons. But things are not 100%. Pullet eggs (the first few eggs that any hen lays, a pullet being a hen that has not yet laid) tend to be small or very small. To suggest that large eggs are in some way not good for the hen is typical ill-educated nonsense.

Plenty online about why large eggs are not good for hens.











.
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eguth said:
Plenty online to inform why large eggs are not good for hens.
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Well, the clever folks who post it had better find a way to alter the genetics of some hens to stop them being laid.

Is any comment from anyone who is a biologist etc.? I doubt it very much.
 
For over eight years we had 4 true-breeds (or whatever they're called). A leghorn (orig. Italy), An Ixworth (Sfk), a Welsomer (Ned.) and a Wyandotte (USA). Lisa Leghorn lasted 2+ years beyond her stated max, with Isabella Ixworth close behind. They didn't produce eggs during the winter, which I understand is normal for true-breeds, but were prolific in their early 4 to 6 years, one even laying occasionally in year 7.

There's nothing quite like DIY eggs from chooks fed on plenty of greenery, worms and the usual and having plenty of run-about space. My big greenhouse was their winter quarters, with outside recreational space.

Was it a worthwhile experience? Yes. Was it economical vis a vis buying eggs? No. Was the flavour of the eggs superlative? No doubt. Lots of daily maintenance, loss of garden growing land, considerable effort/expense in building safe enclosures and coop plus the odd illness tend to mitigate against keeping chooks but it was a rewarding experience, esp. when one or two become 'pets'. They all have very different characters.
 
Although egg size is predominantly determined by genetics with chickens and egg production it is has a direct link to diet. Eggs size can be altered and maintained via nutrition. Very large eggs are not only extremely cruel but detrimental to birds health and life expectancy .
 
Vinny said:
Organic egg colour could only be manipulated by using lots of maize or (very much more expensive) spirulina, which, although green, is actually one of or the richest sources of carotenoids known. In a genuine free-range system, grass contains enough carotenoids to add colour to egg yolks.

Yolks from birds with low ("normal") carotenoid intake are the colour of a pale grapefruit, as best as I can describe. Next time anyone notices an egg from any wild bird that has ended-up broken in their garden or wherever, just note the yolk colour.

The carotenoids have a very important function in eggs that are incubated, and are also beneficial to us humans. LOTS of information online.
Click to expand...

Our chickens were free to wander round our garden, & also visited the neighbours, where they were welcome. Their eggs had deep orange yolks which, when used by my wife for cakes (she's a prolific baker) used to put folk off, them being convinced the colour was artificial.

Our Babcock decided to eat a whole foxglove plant, which amazingly didn't kill her, but sent her bonkers. She'd sleep on her side in the bottom of the hutch, & every now & then rush around in tight circles. Lived a long time though.
 
mjw said:
I recall a podcast on which a senior bod from Iceland foods mentioned egg shell colour - completely irrelevant to egg flavour, apparently but UK buying public are largely convinced that a brown shell = better flavour so white shell eggs mostly go to manufacturing. The opposite holds true for the USA and anecdotally, my memory of shopping in USA bears that out.
Nowt so queer as folk.
Click to expand...

When my mum was still alive I used to go and do her shopping for her. She got her eggs from her milkman for decades, but when someone else took the round over she didn't like the eggs that he supplied (I strongly suspect they were the very same eggs and it was the milkman she didn't like...).

Anyway one day "Eggs, BROWN" appeared on her shopping list. So I got her some Burford Brown ones.

Next week, "Eggs, BROWN (not as brown as last time)" I asked what was wrong with the last lot. "They were too brown...." So I got some organic supermarket own ones, which were still too Brown. So next time I went down I got a Dulux colour chart and told her to pick the shade she preferred.
 
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