Our hens are outside and without artificial light. Why is this important you may ask? Because hens are day light sensitive and only lay eggs when days are about 10 hr or more of daylight. So they are starting to lay eggs again! I'm getting 6-7 again each day and I am thrilled and I know a few of my die hard egg buyers will be thrilled as well. I can't remember which blog I was reading the other day but I learned that you can freeze eggs in the summer or fall when you have more than you may know what to do with for those time in the winter when I had no eggs. You scramble them up and add 1/2 teaspoon salt per cup of eggs and then freeze them in an ice tray. I'm going to do this next year to last me through winter as I was about 4 dozen eggs short this winter.
We have about 40 new hens that are almost 16 weeks old and in 8 weeks or so will they will be ready for this season to lay eggs for us and our CSA members. We are only selling eggs to CSA members and a few other die hard egg purchasers this year as we are scaling back the eggs from last year. We're going to switch to organic feed and concentrate on this small group of hens. (yes 40 is small compared to 140 or 150 we had last year)
All new hens have been carefully selected in order to optimize the 'beauty' factor of the dozen eggs. I'll have greens, whites, hopefully pinks, deep chocolate and lighter brown with and without speckles. I can't wait!
5 comments:
Actually, you can use either salt or sugar depending on whether you want to use them for sweet or savory dishes. You can also separate a bunch into just whites or yolks (I use ice trays so each square equals one white or yolk) for those recipes that call for it. Very handy to have in a pinch I have to say. Anna
You and I must have read the same blog on freezing eggs! I know I have to do that this coming fall. We fell short of eggs, too. Didn't realize how much I would miss those fresh eggs!
I'm getting excited because I can go get six more laying hens soon. Doesn't take much to thrill me!
What breed of hen lays pink eggs??
The arucana's lay green and pink and white and light tan. When we were at the farmers market folks kept telling me-- oh those are from easter egg chickens. They lay lots of colors-- just depends.
And Toni-- I found the blog through your blog-- I have to update the blogs I read on my own blog but i just haven't had time.
oh yeah anna--- thanks for the tips- i was wondering if I could separate the white and the yolks!
Easter Eggers are not an actual breed with standards, they are mutts. They carry the blue-egg gene but can lay eggs of pretty much any color, there's no guarantee you'll get a blue or green egg. Most of what you get from places like TSC and hatcheries are selling EEs not Ameraucanas.
But Ameraucanas ARE an actual breed with breed standards that breeders try to obtain. And they lay blue to green eggs; there is an ABC egg color chart for those who are seeking truly blue eggs.
Araucanas are a RUMPLESS breed and very rare. They are hard to propagate due to the lack of tushies. They lay blue eggs. There are very few breeders of these, but you'll see sites like McMurray calling their chickens Araucanas/Ameraucanas, they are NOT. Even better, they spell Ameraucana wrong, sigh.
I was fortunate to buy 2 EEs from mypetchicken.com and one of them lays a light blue-green egg. I got an Ameraucana from a breeder and she lays a beautiful green egg. If you buy an "Ameraucana" from a hatchery, it will not be the real thing. There are many frustrated posts from people who bought "Ameraucanas" from hatcheries or farm stores only to have them lay brown eggs. Sorry for the long post.
thanks for the tip on freezing fresh eggs!
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