Yard Eggs - Fresh Chicken Eggs

Saturday, 08 March 2008 00:41

Yard Eggs - Fresh Chicken Eggs

Written by Jason

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The eggs shown here are all from free-range chickens here at the Yardstead. You can see they are all different colors including green, blue, pink, beige, brown and white. They vary in size a bit as well. They all look the same on the inside though, and taste the same, which is far better than mass produced eggs from large poultry farms. They have more flavor and many studies have shown they are more nutritious.
The first thing most people notice when they crack open one of our fresh chicken eggs is the thickness of the shells. Because these chickens eat a more varied diet than "sweat shop" chickens, they get more nutrients such as calcium (good for shells) in their diet. The fresh egg yolks also look different. They are more orange than yellow and appear thicker.
I was going to crack a store bought egg and one of our's side by side on a plate to illlustrate the difference, but I couldn't bring myself to buy eggs at the store. It is interesting to see them together. I will post a picture for comparison later in the forum. I'll just borrow a store bought egg from a neighbor.
One of our goals here at the Yardstead is to produce as much of our own food as possible. By growing our own groceries we have much more control over what we put into our bodies. We feed our chickens mostly garden waste, grass clippings, food scraps and occasionally scratch feed to supplement when things are slow in the garden.

Some of our chickens can fly out of the pen and these chickens spend most of the day scratching around the lawn and garden, eating bugs and worms. The chickens that stay in the pen also spend hours a day scratching for bugs and sifting through old pile of leaves and clipping. I rake the old debris out of the pen every few weeks and dump the leftover material (rich with chicken manure) into the compost pile. Bugs are a rich source of nutrients for chickens and they will scratch the ground and hunt for them. Large egg farms feed their chickens commercial feed laiden with antibiotics and other chemicals.
A majority of large chicken farms also keep their chickens in our opinion some pretty terrible conditions. Some chickens spend their entire lives in small cages under bright lights where they have no room to move or do anything other than lay eggs. Some egg farms have better records than others, but it is difficult to know without doing extensive research. You may see eggs in the store marked "Free Range" and hopefully the claim Fresh eggs ready for the carton. is true, but there is no inspection system for companies who make this claim. For broilers (chickens raised for meat) to be labeled free range, they must have USDA certified access to the outdoors. There is no criteria however, for the size of outdoor space, the space alloted per bird, or environmental conditions. There are however, some responsible and humane egg production farms and as awareness grows more will be moving in this direction.
Harvesting the eggs is simple, just remove from the nest and store in the fridge untiil ready to eat. Most of the time the eggs in the nest are very clean. Sometimes after a rain when the ground is muddy, the hens will get muddy tail feathers and smear a little mud on the eggs. If the eggs are a little dirty, I usually just wipe them clean with a damp cloth. Eggs are laid with a natural antibiotic coating that help protect from disease and keep them fresh. Washing with soap can remove this coating. I usually collect eggs every couple of days. Sometimes I go a little longer before collection, but if the nest gets to full eggs can get broken. We currenly have 11 laying hens and with spring approaching and more sunny days, they are almost at full production which is about 1 egg per day per chicken.
We love our chickens here at the yardstead and plan on adding a few more soon. Our egg-layers are fun to watch too. We will probably get a few to slaughter this year also, which will be covered in a future article. We have no rooster at the moment either, but may add one in the future and try to raise some chickens from eggs. It should be interesting and I will also cover the incubation of eggs in a future article. If you would like more details about yard eggs or chickens in general, stop by the forum and read more in the chickens category. If you dont find what your looking for, as always, feel free to post a question or comment in the forum.

Yardstead Home

Read 11527 times Last modified on Friday, 16 September 2011 03:56

Published in Chickens and other birds

More in this category: « The Chicks in the Mail Raising Chickens - The Basics To Get Started »

11 comments

Comment Link Tuesday, 02 August 2011 15:34 posted by jason
Sometimes a change in diet can cause the appearance of the eggs to change. Also, as the chickens age, the appearance of the eggs can change. If the eggs don't smell bad, they are probably OK.
Comment Link Tuesday, 02 August 2011 12:37 posted by Kay Clark
I just found you site--thanks -our yard eggs-the yolks are not as yellow/orange as they used to be & the whites of the eggs are cloudy--is something wrong with them
Comment Link Monday, 04 July 2011 00:10 posted by holly
:eek:
I purchased free range organic eggs and a couple of them had green albumin. I looked online at first to see if that was ok to eat and for the most part the answers were yes because they were free range. I later researched it and it could possibly be bacteria. Should I feel confident that since they did not smell bad but were greenish - while cooking to a yellow color, that they were ok to consume? and ok to consume if it happens again?
Comment Link Thursday, 21 April 2011 16:39 posted by ANNA MULLINS
I live in Lumberton and am looking for fresh yard eggs locally..Do you know of any in Lumberton or even in Silsbee?
Comment Link Wednesday, 10 November 2010 23:20 posted by jason
[quote name="kipper melmige"]i have 10 aracana(spelling?)for the most part they all lay green eggs. Sometimes one if the eggs has kind of white spots on them. They kinda look like a bottle of white out exploded in the nest. Is this something i need to worry about are these eggs good and safe to eat[/quote]
The white spots are most likely nothing to worry about. Sometimes we get white spots and occasionally we get small white calcium deposits on the egg shells. As long as the shells are strong and intact the eggs should be safe to eat. :-)
Comment Link Wednesday, 20 October 2010 22:37 posted by kipper melmige
i have 10 aracana(spelling?)for the most part they all lay green eggs. Sometimes one if the eggs has kind of white spots on them. They kinda look like a bottle of white out exploded in the nest. Is this something i need to worry about are these eggs good and safe to eat
Comment Link Monday, 08 February 2010 20:46 posted by jason
It's best to simply wipe them with a damp cloth. When eggs are laid they are covered with a protective film which helps preserve them, so it's best not to use soap. We usually wipe ours with a damp paper towel and sometimes use a rough plastic sponge to remove stuck-on dropping.
Comment Link Monday, 08 February 2010 17:59 posted by MARIE CLAIRE OLIVIER
I buy fresh yard eggs from a neighbor, and they haven't been cleaned, but sometimes they have been refrigerated.
How do I safely clean them?
Comment Link Saturday, 30 January 2010 16:31 posted by Stacy
Hi, my question was how long do yard eggs stay good when you keep them in the fridge? :-*
Comment Link Tuesday, 26 May 2009 13:13 posted by jason
Red spots in the egg are caused by a small drop of blood that gets inside the egg as it is developing inside the hen. This occurs naturally in less than 1% of all eggs laid. It is sometimes seen in the first few eggs laid by a young hen but is more common in older hens. Commercial egg producers candle their eggs and discard eggs which contain red spots. The eggs are still fine to eat and pose no health risk but people just don\'t like seeing the red spots. Older hens are culled in commercial operations to keep down the number of eggs that have spots.