The answer to that question is a resounding YES! Eggs are an excellent source of protein and make a great treat for chickens. The egg white contains more than half of the egg’s protein and none of the fat. The yolk contains all of the fat and most of the egg’s vitamins. In fact the egg yolk is one of the few foods which naturally contains vitamin D. Eggs are not fortified with vitamin D as is milk and some brands of yogurt and orange juice. The egg is also considered a complete protein food because it has all of the essential amino acids, and it’s tasty. So, yes, it’s not only o.k. to feed eggs to your chickens, but eggs are a healthy supplement which your birds will thoroughly enjoy!
Your chickens will thoroughly enjoy a treat of scrambled eggs!Read full post
I enjoy Easter, for many reasons, one being family traditions. It’s a time to gather as families and enjoy good food, and fun activities…like coloring Easter Eggs! I remember when I was a little girl we spent one Easter at my grandma’s home. We colored eggs, the old-fashioned way. My grandma must have had a ton of onions stored in her basement. She collected the dried, brown onion skins which we wrapped around uncooked eggs. We tied thread around them to hold the skins in place and then hard-boiled the eggs in a pan of water on the stove. The result was beautiful yellow eggs with brown marbling. The most memorable part was just spending time with my grandma. Coloring Easter Eggs with my kids was always a fun time, albeit a little messy maybe, but a time filled with laughs and giggles and ah’s as they created some awesome design on an egg. We experimented with different store bought and homemade coloring kits. A favorite was always drawing pictures or writing names on the eggs with a wax crayon before dipping them in the egg dye. The wax repels the coloring and your drawing shows up easily on the colored egg.
I would like to share three easy, home-grown methods of coloring eggs. I can’t take credit for coming up with the ideas, but I have tried them and they were fun, easy, inexpensive and I was pleased with the results. Start with white or light colored hard-boiled egg. To make peeling easy with even the freshest of eggs, I hard-boil my eggs in the pressure cooker on high for 9 minutes, then quick release and run eggs under cold water.
To pressure cook, put eggs in a steamer basket with 1 cup of water and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar.
Technique #1) Dump 1/4 cup of rice into a zip lock bag. Add 15 – 20 drops of liquid food coloring and mix. Put a hard-boiled egg into the bag, zip it shut and gently toss your egg. This seems like it would be a good one for young kids, and not real messy. Once desired results are achieved, remove the egg from the bag, set it on a paper towel for a few minutes to dry, then wipe of any excess rice. The result is a kind of fun textured pattern on your egg. You might have to add additional food coloring if you do more than just a few eggs, but they dry quickly and then you just toss the ziploc in the garbage. Not a lot of dirty cups to wash.
You can even mix your colors following the directions on the back of the food coloring package.A fun textured pattern.
Technique #2) This is a variation of the shaving cream, food coloring tie-dye effect. Spread some whipped cream on a cookie sheet and add some drops of food coloring.
I used several drops of blue, green and yellow food coloring.
Swirl it gently with a fork. Don’t mix too much or the colors will combine and you will end up with muddy colors.
Roll your eggs through the colors and then set on a paper towel to dry. I let mine dry for about 1/2 hour, then rinsed off the whipped cream. The result was beautiful, pastel, tie-dyed eggshells.
Roll to achieve desired results. Don’t over do it.
Technique #3) Onion skin dyed eggs. Wrap a raw egg in the outer layer of onion skins and secure with thread or twine. Place in a pan on a stove and boil for 20 minutes or until hard-boiled. Place in cool water and remove onion skins.
I had a purple onion and a brown onion. The result for both was yellow colored eggs. The brown onion had brown marbling and the purple onion skin had some blue marbling.
I know that some chicken owners are lucky and have hens that do all the egg coloring for them, but for those of us who don’t, I hope that you give some of these fun egg coloring techniques a try. Let me know of any fun egg coloring techniques that are a tradition in your family. Above all, have an enjoyable holiday with family and friends!
I really enjoy spring. It signals not only the end of cold weather and snow, but also new life. It’s the time of year when we see animals come out of hibernation, bees and butterflies make their appearance once again and all sorts of baby farm animals take to the stage! There is not much that is cuter than a baby anything with their pure innocence and clumsy antics. Spring is also the time for planting and realizing new growth on our perennial plants. I always get excited when I see new shoots on my rose bushes. There are so many varieties, colors and smells of roses and they are a plant with many benefits, even for our chickens and other farm animals.
I am always interested in learning new things and figure that knowledge is the key to…well a lot of things…success, understanding, accomplishing goals, being better equipped to care for my animals. The list can go on. As long as I have been raising chickens, I did not know the entire process of egg formation, so I set out to learn. And learn I did…some very interesting facts, which I’m going to share with you.
Have you ever wondered how an egg is formed?
A female chicken is born, or should I say hatched, with a fully formed, functioning ovary that contains several thousand tiny ova. Two ovaries develop in the chicken embryo, but the right one stops developing and only the left ovary and oviduct mature. The chick grows and somewhere around 6 months of age she begins to reach sexual maturity. That’s when these tiny ova start to develop into yolks, a few at a time. Once a yolk is developed, it is released from the ovary into the oviduct. Occasionally two yolks will be released at the same time. This results in the double yolk eggs we see from time to time in our frying pans. This is also the stage where a blood spot on the yolk might occur, not due to fertilization, just an accident of nature as the yolk is released from the ovary. Once the yolk enters the oviduct, the egg can be fertilized if a rooster has mated with the hen. The hen can store sperm from the rooster for upwards of two to three weeks. After fertilization, a membrane is put around the yolk to basically hold it together. The yolk then passes into the a part of the oviduct called the magnum where the albumen or egg white is put on. Then on to the isthmus where a thin membrane is added, surrounding the entire egg. The final process is when the egg enters the uterus and the outer shell, shell color and the protective coating called bloom are deposited over the egg. This final process of shell making takes about 20 hours. When this is completed, the hen will lay her egg.
The egg formation process takes about 24 hours to complete before the hen can lay her egg.
Some interesting facts about eggs and egg laying:
The entire egg laying process from start to finish takes between 24-26 hours.
30 minutes after a hen lays an egg, she will again ovulate and start the process over again.
A hen can store a rooster’s sperm for 2-3 weeks.
A hen will take a break from egg laying when the days shorten. She may stop laying completely or just significantly reduce the number of eggs she lays. A hen requires 14-16 hours of daylight for high egg production. [Editor’s note: this means that you can artificially increase egg production with UV lamps or other light sources.]
The oviduct, which the egg passes through during formation is 25-27 inches long. The egg initially passes through the oviduct small end first. Just before laying, the egg will turn and enter the world large end first.
The color of an egg yolk depends on a hen’s diet.
The color of the egg yolk is dependent upon the hen’s diet. If she eats a lot of foods with yellow-orange pigments, her eggs will be a darker yellow or almost orange color.
An egg that has been fertilized and laid, can remain in a state of suspension, under proper conditions, for approximately 7 days and still remain viable to incubate and hatch. After day 7 the hatch-ability begins to decline. This gives a hen time to accumulate her clutch of eggs, then incubate them so they will all hatch at approximately the same time…within a day or two of one another..
The average incubation time for a baby chick is 21 days. During this incubation time, a broody hen will only leave her nest once, maybe twice a day for short periods of time to eat and relieve herself. She will eat about 80% less while setting on her eggs.
A hen will quit laying eggs when she begins incubating her clutch of eggs and will not resume laying again until the chicks are about 5 weeks old. This is also about the time she will begin distancing herself from her brood.
A hen will lay an average of 265 eggs in a productive year. The first two years are the most productive, with laying tapering off as she gets older. A well cared for hen can provide farm fresh eggs for 5 – 7 years.
Keeping a rooster with your flock of hens is something that requires serious consideration before doing so. Many cities, and even some rural towns, do not allow farm animals to be kept in residential neighborhoods. It appears that zoning laws have become more lenient in recent years with regards to keeping backyard hens, but it is important to check the animal zoning laws before acquiring any chickens. Roosters are often not allowed in many urban locations because they are considered a nuisance with all their boisterous crowing. I, for one, love nature and farm life and all the sounds that go with it! But, before you decide that letting a rooster hang out with your girls is a good thing, check your town or city’s animal zoning laws.
Winter is waning and spring is on the horizon. The days are getting longer and eggs are once again beginning to appear in nesting boxes. Such a welcome sight! What are some of the things that we, as chicken farmers, can do to help our hens be the best layers that they can be?
