In this section we will tell you all about eggs and the many things you can use them for. If you plan to keep chickens you will need to know about eggs. After all they are a happy by product of your new found friends and once your flock is in full production you are going to get plenty of eggs. So, you need to know what to do with them and what to anticipate should things not come out quite like you might expect.
Your egg is basically the beginnings of a chicken and it therefore it is a great source of protien. It will only grow into a chicken if you have a cockerel or have acquired eggs that have been fertilised. Each chicken can produce up to 1 egg a day however it is normally less than this. Her eggs will stay “fresh” for a number of weeks ready to be incubated and hatched, this why an egg has a shelf life of 3 weeks. A broody chicken will produce eggs for a week or two in order to get enough before she properly sits on them to incubate. The effort she needs to put into incubation means she will not move away from the nest to feed herself unless made to. So, she will want all her eggs to hatch within a day of each other and they are designed to do this. Not all the eggs will be fertile so she lays plenty to ensure her efforts go rewarded.
It is unfertile eggs we really want for our food. It can be a nasty surprise to get a partially formed chick when you crack open a shell. If you keep a cockerel it is best to check your eggs for partial embryo’s before you use them or pass them on to others.
In this section we will look at;
- What an egg comprises of and egg colours
- Eggy issues and dealing with them
- Egg sizes
- Giving spare eggs away or selling them
- Cooking eggs, the basics
- Egg recipes including
- Using quantities of eggs when you have a glut
- Yolk recipes
- White recipes