Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Problem with Blood Spots

A blood spot in an egg does not make it inedible or unsafe.It is more of a visual defect common with fertilized eggs.
Ironically this photo is of a commercially produced egg. This type of defect is usually culled before it reaches the marketplace. The industry used to use a candling table to spot defects of any type, such as cracks (they call that a check) or dirty eggs or eggs with blood or meat spots.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1460/are-red-spots-in-eggs-dangerous
 The above blog has some interesting info from people in the egg industry.
More to come from a Kosher viewpoint.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A dented egg such as the one on the right is a result of insufficient calcium in a layers diet. This can be rectified by adding oyster shell to the feed mix. A generous handful mixed into the layer pellets 2-3 times per week strengthen a hens eggs within a couple weeks and have her eggs normal within a month.






Saturday, February 12, 2011

Pretty Speckled Egg Today

I got the prettiest speckled egg today. No idea who laid this pretty egg. Don't have time to stake out the nesting boxes.
Er--cages. True to form hens choose their own nesting sites. I made up some very nice nest boxes---which they totally ignored.
They prefered a couple of old rabbit cages which were not needed when we moved the rabbitry out of the hot and dusty barn and into the cool shade along side the shop.
Not one to irritate or argue with hens who know their business and lay beautiful eggs I reline the rabbit cages with grass hay from time to time and gather eggs.

Eggs Fresh Out Of The Nest.

Not too bad looking. The Polish hen is laying. Hers is the white egg. Ahhh the advantage of having several breeds of hen. The light brown ones are from the Barred Rocks and the darker brown are Rhode Island Red eggs.
The new hens are still laying thin shelled eggs as is evidenced by the yolk and shavings from the nest box still clinging to another egg.
Hmmmm---that one hen that was laying the dented eggsare getting better.
She came from a flock that belonged to a sweet little old lady who fell and broke her hip. Her kids didn't have time to take care of Mom and the hens too so they called me.
 I added more oyster shell to the feed mix and their eggs are looking better today. When they first arrived their eggs were so thin shelled they were breaking in the nest before I could gather them.

 Calcium is so essential to good quality eggs. I have seen hens lay eggs that were completely without a shell--just covered with a membrane.