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- Sep 5, 2006
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- 20,593
I only have five hens and get between 3, to 5 a day. Yes eggs keep around 6 weeks in the refrigerator.
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My hens eggs compared to store eggs
- Thread starter jill jackson
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- Nov 28, 2012
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My wife's best friend has about 11 acres and has 15 chickens that are definitely "free range" as they wander around out near the chicken coop and are free to wander around out in the yard. They are kept up in the coop at night. We get tons of free, fresh eggs.
We save the egg-shells and rinse them out, and return them to my wife's friend to crush up and feed back to the chickens as a natural calcium supplement.
We save the egg-shells and rinse them out, and return them to my wife's friend to crush up and feed back to the chickens as a natural calcium supplement.
Daniel Dorn
Gold Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 1999
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- 5,318
Had free range RI Reds growing up. One of my chores was to feed, water and gather eggs. 5-8 per day. These guys (gals) were mean, too. But they sure helped keep the bugs down in the yard. We let one brood go to hatching, but with all the chicks gone in less than 2 weeks, we decided it's just better to eat the eggs. Must have been raccoons, coyotes, or stray cats. We'd occasionally get a red-tailed hawk take one of the full-grown, but usually our dog kept them away.
The hardest part of keeping chickens, was keeping them alive in winter. Can't really use space heaters in a coop full of hay, so we used a couple 100 watt bulbs. In the end, a series of sub-zero nights put us back on store-bought eggs.
Lots of memories brought up by this thread. Thanks for triggering a walk down memory lane. Now I got a hankerin' for some good ol' farm-fresh eggs.
The hardest part of keeping chickens, was keeping them alive in winter. Can't really use space heaters in a coop full of hay, so we used a couple 100 watt bulbs. In the end, a series of sub-zero nights put us back on store-bought eggs.
Lots of memories brought up by this thread. Thanks for triggering a walk down memory lane. Now I got a hankerin' for some good ol' farm-fresh eggs.
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2013
- Messages
- 6,169
My family raised chickens for eggs to sell, hatched chicks to sell, raised chickens to sell, etc. We got started around 1931, during the Great Depression, and dropped the chicken side of the business around 1967. One of my first jobs at age 7 was cleaning chicken shit pans. :barf: Pull a dirty pan, stick in a clean one, clean the dirty pan, pull another dirty pan, stick in the clean pan, and repeat for 80 to 100 pans. DAILY. :barf::barf::barf:
When someone buys baby chicks, they have the options of buying
- "Straight Runs", which is a random selection of chicks from the hatch.
- "Culled" or "Sexed" chickens, where the male/female baby chicks have been separated.
In the old days, the males were raised as "broilers" (to about 2.5#), "fryers" (2.5# to 3.5#), or "roasters" (over 3.5#), usually becoming Sunday dinner at around 6 to 8 weeks old for the first 2 and up to 8 months for the last category. Old hens, past their laying prime, were called "boilers" because they were so tough, you had to boil them a long time so you could chew them.
With the advent of the egg farm mass producers, the term "culled" came into use as most male chicks were culled out and destroyed, usually by being ground up for use as dog food. This practice is on the way out and should be eliminated in the US NLT 2020. (Female ducks have been treated the same way in France's foie gras production as make ducks gain weight faster.)
Since we could get more money for hens than roosters (IIRC, my dad said we sold the hens for 10¢ and the roosters for 5¢), my grandmother sent my aunt to Oklahoma to study under the master chicken sexers of the day - a bunch of little old Japanese ladies who would mis-identify as few as 1 chicken in 10,000. This was done under the table as the major chicken producers didn't want to loose their monopoly on chicken sexing. But during the Great Depression, money talked. So my aunt lived with the ladies and learned chicken sexing and Japanese. Her final exam was to sex 1000 chicks in a row without a mistake. She would sex a chick and her teacher would sex it right after her. If she made a mistake, she had to start over. The final exam took her 3 weeks to pass. After she came home, she tried to teach my father, but he never made it past 110 in a row.
When she came home, she started sexing our chickens and would sex anyone else's for a 1¢ a chick, with a guarantee that if she was wrong, she'd refund the customer 25¢. Doesn't sound like much, but back then, $1 a day was big bucks wages. She had to pay up only 6x in 16 years of chicken sexing.
And I still hate the smell of chicken shit to this day.
When someone buys baby chicks, they have the options of buying
- "Straight Runs", which is a random selection of chicks from the hatch.
- "Culled" or "Sexed" chickens, where the male/female baby chicks have been separated.
In the old days, the males were raised as "broilers" (to about 2.5#), "fryers" (2.5# to 3.5#), or "roasters" (over 3.5#), usually becoming Sunday dinner at around 6 to 8 weeks old for the first 2 and up to 8 months for the last category. Old hens, past their laying prime, were called "boilers" because they were so tough, you had to boil them a long time so you could chew them.
With the advent of the egg farm mass producers, the term "culled" came into use as most male chicks were culled out and destroyed, usually by being ground up for use as dog food. This practice is on the way out and should be eliminated in the US NLT 2020. (Female ducks have been treated the same way in France's foie gras production as make ducks gain weight faster.)
Since we could get more money for hens than roosters (IIRC, my dad said we sold the hens for 10¢ and the roosters for 5¢), my grandmother sent my aunt to Oklahoma to study under the master chicken sexers of the day - a bunch of little old Japanese ladies who would mis-identify as few as 1 chicken in 10,000. This was done under the table as the major chicken producers didn't want to loose their monopoly on chicken sexing. But during the Great Depression, money talked. So my aunt lived with the ladies and learned chicken sexing and Japanese. Her final exam was to sex 1000 chicks in a row without a mistake. She would sex a chick and her teacher would sex it right after her. If she made a mistake, she had to start over. The final exam took her 3 weeks to pass. After she came home, she tried to teach my father, but he never made it past 110 in a row.
When she came home, she started sexing our chickens and would sex anyone else's for a 1¢ a chick, with a guarantee that if she was wrong, she'd refund the customer 25¢. Doesn't sound like much, but back then, $1 a day was big bucks wages. She had to pay up only 6x in 16 years of chicken sexing.
And I still hate the smell of chicken shit to this day.
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2013
- Messages
- 13,275
Nothing better than your own eggs, my neighbor has 6 chickens and a rooster. Wait, he has 5 now, one flew over my fence and my husky chewed his head off. Incidentally someone put a nice hole in my tire of my car. Have no idea who could of done such a cowardly act.
I like eggs and scrapple, mmmmmm yum.
I like eggs and scrapple, mmmmmm yum.