That's a LOOOOOOONG Egg!

Today's Eggs...

"One of these things is not like the others,

One of these things just doesn't belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?"

Go ahead and watch the video...

I loved it as a child and after watching it again,

I realize I still like it!

Such a catchy song...

Bet you're smiling... :)

(Did you catch Bob's plunder?)

You Call That an Egg??

Here is the winner of the ugly egg of the day contest.





Some hen should be ashamed of this creation.

This egg is not even symmetrical.





What happened ladies?

And what is with all the lines and creases?




How do such deformities happen?


Don't ask me...
I have no idea.

Who's the Slacker?

Okay ladies...


Who is the slacker?


Who is laying eggs the size of malted milk balls?






Seriously...


I know it's been cold, but come on, you have the Taj Mahal when it comes to chicken coops. Dan the Man built your exquisite coop with love and so many amenities (beautiful sliding glass windows, completely insulated, an electric wall heater, a light set on a timer so you get the proper amount of light each day, nesting boxes filled with fresh litter on a regular basis, the most expensive waterer and feeder, custom roosts that I personally constructed with my own two hands from real branches...)


So don't go telling me that it is too cold to lay a normal sized egg.


I'm not buying that lame excuse.


What more do you need?


Really...

Noteworthy Eggs

I know I have blogged about eggs before, but they just continue to fascinate me.
The other day I got these two noteworthy eggs out of the coop.
One TINY egg and one egg that looks like the hen was decorating it for Easter.

First here is a picture of the itty bitty sweetie-pie egg along side a normal sized egg.

Isn't that cute?

Now here is the Easter egg, notice the striations of color and the subtle speckles?

And here are a few pictures I was just having fun with.

eGGNoRMouS!

Big Happenings in the Coop Today!




Every once in a while someone will lay a
gynormous egg like this one!

And you thought you had a hard day a work today!

Are You Sure You Want to Buy Your Eggs at the Grocery Store?

Here is a great article about store bought eggs. Thanks to Vicki who sent it to me! Take a second to read it, it's not very long, I promise.

After you get done reading it, call me to get on my egg delivery list! Although my eggs are not officially "certified organic" we do make our own feed.

Why You Don't Want to Buy Organic Eggs at the Grocery Store!


Interested in more egg facts? Read these past posts if you missed them.

How Long Do Fresh Eggs Last?

An Egg is An Egg? Part One

An Egg is an Egg? Part Two

An Egg is an Egg? Part Two

Last week I wrote about different brands of eggs and their nutritional facts and came to the conclusion that nutrition-wise the "expensive, all-natural, omega-3" eggs are no different than the "bargain brand" plain old white eggs (depending on their diet, which I touch on later.)

I also compared "free range" eggs to "pastured" eggs.

If you missed that post, the link is below.

An Egg is an Egg? Part One

Today I want to touch on a few more subjects.

• United Egg Producers
• "Cage Free" is no better than "caged" in my opinion.
• An egg layer's diet

When I first started looking at all the different egg cartons that I have received from friends, I noticed that a few of them, but not the majority, had a little advertising claiming to be "United Egg Producers Certified." Not having the foggiest idea as to what that meant, I went to the website in the advertisement.

United Egg Producer Certified, www.uepcertified.com

Here is a little literate from the UEP website:

The United Egg Producers "wrote a set of industry guidelines titled 'Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg Laying Flocks.' These guidelines were first introduced as a voluntary program in 2002 for the industry to implement when requested by their customers, since then they have evolved into a committed program called "United Egg Producers Certified."

The United Egg Producers Certified program standards are the strictest in the industry and are part of our ongoing commitment to providing American consumers the safest, best quality and most economical eggs in the world. Our farmers commit to these strict guidelines and are audited by the USDA and Validus for compliance on 100 percent of their farms before they are allowed to place the United Egg Producers Certified seal of approval on their egg packaging."

I spent quite a bit of time at this website and found it very interesting. They defend the cage production of eggs very well in my opinion, but I still do not agree with the practice. I believe some of their "advantages," but still feel like their "advantages" are not worth the "disadvantages" which they do not present.

They compare the small backyard flocks of 1940 to today's cage chickens. They make the point that the backyard chickens were "continuously subjected to diseases, freezing, predators, poisoning, and infighting, had a precarious existence and a normal mortality rate as high as 40% per year. Average yearly egg production was little more than 100 eggs per year of which many were contaminated by the microbes from poultry diseases." What we need to keep in mind is that these flocks were maintained by mostly city folk during WWII in order to feed their families. I wonder if these "city dwellers" really knew how to care for their flocks and did they even have the proper facilities and resources to do so? My guess is that they did not.

I believe that people today have a greater resource of educational material in order to raise healthy flocks. I think that today's technology and advancements overcome the problems of the 1940 small backyard flocks so why aren't they comparing today's backyard flocks with their caged systems?

One argument that defends the huge caged systems is that we can't possible "feed the world" without these industrialized systems. This may be true for some parts of the world, but we can feed more than we do with our family farms. Raising eggs layers is not a rocket science and does not require a huge amount of specialized equipment or capital. Can you imagine if all the people who were able to raise a small flock of egg layers actually did, how many eggs we would have? But now I'm getting off on another subject which I wasn't going to address in this post, so back to the main subject.

I believe that the United Egg Producers are trying to change the practices of the egg industry for the better. I read through some of their 36 page guidelines and think that many of their practices are not ideal, but better than the current practices I have read about.

I found it very interesting that out of all the cartons that I had only two were UEP Certified. They were:

• Golden Farm Fresh Eggs
• Great Day Naturals All Natural Omega-3 Eggs

Okay lets switch gears and talk about "Cage Free." "Cage Free" is no better than "caged" in my opinion. Cage free simply means that the hens are not housed in a "cage" but are raised in a confined containment on a barn floor. They are still in a hot, smelly, crowded cage, it's just bigger and doesn't have individual partisans. Oh, and nesting boxes are provided. I wonder how often the litter on the floor is changed? How much manure is allowed to accumulate? In this regard, I wonder if the caged system is better because the manure "drops" through the cage and the hen is not "living" in it. Many people envision "cage free" chickens running around doing what chickens do when they are raised on the farm. Not so people! These chicken houses full of "cage free" chickens are very crowded. Just look at some of the pictures on the United Egg Producers website.

Here is the guidelines for floor space per hen in a "cage free" system according to the UEP. "A minimum of 1.5 sq. ft. per hen must be allocated to allow normal behavior. In a house with perching/roosting area over a droppings pit/belt, the minimum space can be 1.2 sq. ft. for Brown Egg Layers and 1.0 sq. ft. for White Leghorns. In multi-tier systems with feeders and drinkers on overhead perches/platforms, and in which the overhead perches/platforms provide sufficient space for at least 55% of the hens to perch, then a minimum of 1.0 sq. ft. of available space must be provided."

The guidelines for "caged" hens is "minimum of 67 square inches per hen for White Leghorn hens and 76 square inches for Brown Egg Layers." 67 square inches = .47 sq. ft. and 76 square inches = .53 sq. ft. The square inches sound like a lot more room than the square feet. I wonder if that is why they are using square inches here and not square feet like they did in the "cage free" requirements? That's not very much room folks, for either system, cage free or caged!!


Now on to the egg layers diet. As Michelle commented on the last blog about this "Bargain eggs are typically produced with commercial non-vegetarian feed, the meat for which is centrifuge extracted from commercial trimmings & bones. In my opinion, such eggs are a health risk to consumers, due to prion disease risks and the hen's poor nutrition." I agree Michelle! Who wants an egg that is produced from a hen that is fed a diet of things we don't want to consume ourselves? Seriously. Why do we feel like we need to feed animals a diet that God never intended for them to eat in the first place? Are we saying we know better than God? Chickens are omnivores, yes, but in the wild they eat seeds, insects and even larger animals such as lizards and mice. Their natural diet does not consist of a mixture of ground up eyeballs, anuses, bones, feathers and euthanized dogs. Sorry I had to say that, but it's the truth. Some egg laying hens are fed a supplement of this! Most animals that are in the industrialized food system spend the entirety of their short lives in factories eating recycled meat and animal fat. So make sure if you are buying eggs at the store, although I can't imagine why you are, that the carton says that they are fed a vegetarian diet.

Well, I think I'll just let you think about that for now. I need to get some work done around here. The first batch of chicks are coming on Friday, all 200 of them and I still have a few things to get done before then.

If you haven't entered the giveaway for the Emerilware Cast Iron 10" Square Grill Pan and the Sassy Cook'n Hot Chicks Oven Mitt and Potholders Set you'd better saddle up your horse and do it. Here's the link to that post if you missed it!

My First Official Giveaway! Whoo Hoo!!

An Egg is an Egg? Part One

I have been wondering about eggs lately. People save egg cartons for me. The other day I got a stack of various brands and types. I have a variety of brands and types from the "loaded models" to the "basics." You might be surprised as to what I have learned.

Note: Disclaimer! I am not a scientist or an egg expert! These are my own findings and conclusions. Don't take my word for everything, be informed and do some of your own investigations! I am in no way promoting or demoting any of these eggs or brands. Clearly I feel in my own opinion that the best eggs are those that you buy from your local egg farmer like me!


Here are the ones I decided to compare and what all they advertise on their cartons:

Eggland's Best

• Farm Fresh
• All Natural
• America's Superior Tasting Egg/American Masters of Taste Gold Superior Taste
• High in Vitamin E
• 100 mg of Omega 3
• 25% Less Saturated Fat than Regular Eggs
• Vegetarian Fed Hens

Sparboe Farms Cage Free Brown Plus with Omega and Lutein

• Omega-3 250 mg per egg
• Lutein 300 ug per egg
• Rich in Vitamin E
• Hens are Raised with Antibiotics
• All natural Vegetarian diet

Great Day Naturals, All Natural Omega-3 Eggs

• 350 mg Omega-3 per egg
• Hens fed multi-grain diets
• Rich Golden Yolks

Sparboe All Natural Farm Fresh Brown Eggs

• All Natural Farm Fresh

Shurfresh White

• Fresh eggs

All eggs were Grade A and Large

I wish I knew how much they all cost. That would be interesting as well. But I didn't go that far.

This is a table I comprised from the Nutrition Facts from each carton.

You'll have to click on the table to enlarge it and then hit your browser's back button to return to the blog.















Okay let's check this out! Points I found interesting and questions that were raised in my mind!

• Did you notice that they are all exactly the same except for the Eggland's Best? Even when we are comparing the brown eggs to the white eggs. Hmmmm, interesting!
• How come the Omega-3 and Lutein is not listed on the Nutrition Label?
• How is the Omega-3 and Lutein produced? It is from the hen's diet or does it exist naturally in all eggs?

With these questions I decided to do a little more research and since this is not a true research paper I am not including the sources where I gathered my information because of times sake. You will just have to take my word for it.

In conventional hens most of the added Omega-3 content comes from feeding the chickens a flax diet. You cannot get the benefits of Omega-3 eggs unless you eat the egg yolks. I read one report that said there had been "multiple complaints urging the FDA to crack down on various egg producers who market their eggs as "healthy" omega 3's. Among the complaints: quite often the eggs have been shown to have far less omega-3 than is advertised on the package (although even the advertised amount is extremely low.) Omega 3 derived from flax is a different type of omega 3 (ALA) than that present in fish (EPA and DHA), and is regarded as being less beneficial.
Bottom line, "omega 3" eggs are basically regular eggs with a small amount of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) present. A consumer would get much better benefit for much less cost by simply taking flaxseed oil, (or alpha-linolenic acid, which is available in capsule form.)"

I also read that a serving of two omega-3 enriched eggs still has less than half of the omega-3 fatty acids found in a 3 ounce portion of salmon.

Then I ran across this! Eggs produced by chickens fed a diet of greens and insects produce higher levels of n−3 fatty acids (mostly ALA) than chickens fed corn or soybeans. In addition to feeding chickens insects and greens, fish oils may be added to their diet to increase the amount of fatty acid concentrations in eggs. The addition of flax and canola seeds to the diet of chickens, both good sources of alpha-linolenic acid, increases the omega-3 content of the eggs.

And this!

"The ideal egg is one that comes from a hen raised outdoors (often on pasture), in a place where she can eat a variety of green plants and insects. Hens raised this way typically still eat grain-based feed, but supplemented with a significant amount of foraged food. This dramatically increases the nutritional value of the eggs." Just like we raise our chickens!!!!

I also want to make a couple of more observations. "Free Range" supermarket eggs are not the same as "pastured" eggs. Free Range in the commercial flocks means that the hens have access to "range" outside their smelly gigantic barns but generally they do not go outside. Hens raised in commercial flocks are not even allowed outside until they are several months old and by the time they are given the opportunity, they don't even know what to do outside. Lets face it, who would want to venture outside of the only thing you had ever know? And generally the "range" consist of small strips on the side of the massive barns. We are not talking unlimited pasture here folks or an entire backyard and there is no "free ranging", they are restricted as to where they are allowed to go. So these "ranges" do not provide the grass and insects that a pastured hen would receive. Pastured hens know how to forage and live outside of a coop. So let face it, "free range" supermarket eggs are nutritionally similar to conventional eggs. The reason "pastured" eggs are so nutritious is that the chickens get to supplement their diets with abundant fresh plants and insects. Having little doors on the side of a giant smelly barn just doesn't replicate that.

All eggs are not created equal. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. Anyone who has seen the tall, yellow/orange richly colored yolk, viscous white, and tough shell of a true "pastured" egg know they are profoundly different than any supermarket egg! Oh and lets not forget to mention the taste of a true "pastured" egg!

Here are two posts I found in a blog that I really liked.

Whole Health Source: Pastured Eggs

Whole Health Source: Omega-3-eggs

I have more things to bring up, but since this is getting a little lengthy, I'll close for now and do a part two to this post.

Let me know what your thinking. I am always open to discussions!

Proverbs 27:17 "Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another."

How Long Do Fresh Eggs Last?

Ever wonder how long fresh eggs last? After being asked this question and not really knowing the answer I finally did some research and came up with these interesting facts.

• Eggs can remain edible for even longer than a month, but freshness (egg yolk that sits firm and high, and a thick viscous egg white) will be noticeably less after two weeks.
  
  If eggs start out as Grade AA, they remain AA for only two weeks if properly refrigerated. After that, they'll be Grade A for another 2 weeks.
  

• Here is a true test of freshness: Get a bowl of cold water. Put the whole egg in the water. If it sinks, it's fresh; if it floats to the top, it is old. It will kind of lay almost on its side. You can see the age of it by how much it floats. It's a good idea to do this test before selling any eggs if you suspect they are older than two weeks.
  
  However, by putting the eggs in water, you wash away the bloom from the egg, a protective layering that prevents bacteria from entering the egg. Therefore, unless you are not expecting to keep the eggs for very long, you should not put them in water. If you must wash the eggs, use HOT running water.
  

• Farmers have 30 days from the day an egg is laid to get it to stores. Then, the stores have another 30 days to sell the eggs. The USDA recommends a maximum of 5 weeks in your refrigerator before you discard your eggs. What does this all boil down to? On April 1, you could be eating an egg that was laid on Christmas.

• Many eggs in the U.S. get to market within a few days of laying. If there is a USDA shield on the carton, it must have at least a Julian pack date. A use-by is not required, but if used, it must not be more than 45 days from packing. If the eggs are not distributed interstate, state laws will apply and are variable.
  

• Keep in mind that farmers generally get their eggs to stores within a week, and both the "pack date" and "sell by" date are stamped onto the carton. The numbers run from 1-365, depending on the day of the year. Lastly, there is a big difference in taste between farm fresh eggs and week-old eggs. If you want the freshest eggs, you can buy from a local farmer.
  
  
• There is an expiration date on the carton. If in doubt, put the egg in water. If it floats, do not use it.

So, now you know. I feel smarter, how about you?

I do have a limited number of fresh eggs available if you are interested in buying farm fresh eggs. I sell them for $2/dozen. Let me know if you are interested!

A couple of weeks ago I found this monstrous egg in one of the nesting boxes. It was huge and had a double yoke. Crazy... I felt sorry for the chicken who laid that egg. Get a ruler out and see how big a 3 inch egg is!! The two on the left are regular sized eggs, like a large and an extra large. The monster egg was even bigger than an extra large egg on the egg scale!!


Then this week I found this puny little blue egg. I wonder what was up with that?

Did the chicken get interrupted while she was laying or did she just get bored with the process and decided to call it quits before the egg was the proper size. Guess I need to do some more research on exactly how a hen develops an egg and the whole process. I'll fill you in on what all I find out. Or even better, if you are an egg expert, why don't you fill me in! Leave a comment or two!


The weather is still cold and snowy and we are still trying to get our corn harvested. Our trip to Japan to see Nick, our oldest who is stationed at Yokota Air Force Base near Tokyo, is fast approaching!!! Yikes, I hope we can get everything taken care of before we go!

Think we'll have omelets for dinner tonight! Thanks chickies for all your hard work and the fruits of your labor!

Y'all come back now, ya hear?!?

(As always... make sure you include your name in your comment, unless you truly want to be anonymous and if you want to see a photo full sized, click on the photo. To get back to the blog, click on your browsers back button.)