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Author Topic: Viability of home grown eggs  (Read 10026 times)

Offline Kev

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #20 on: February 25, 2008, 08:47:07 pm »
very soiled eggs (poop on them) are ok to eat for a couple of days, and should not be sold.
egg washing is a myth.

You're right about egg washing. We just wipe ours off with vegetable oil.

It's not the poop getting into the egg that's a problem. It's keeping poop out of people.

In large commercial farms salmonella is a serious problem in the chicken gut, so handwashing is key to keeping it out of people gut. When people pick up eggs, handle them and then don't wash their hands before touch other food products that won't be cooked there's a serious potential for illness.

There's been some interesting research that demonstrated that if you feed chickens food containing yogurt bacteria, the yogurt crowds out the salmonella. BUt I think it raised costs.

Kev
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Offline BEH

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #21 on: February 26, 2008, 12:35:59 pm »
That is a really neat site Peter, thanks for the link!

8 to 10 month!   Who would have thought?

Barbra  :)

Offline danno

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #22 on: February 26, 2008, 01:52:36 pm »
Last summer I found a large pc of some kind of erosion control blanket that was made up of a web type plastic material about 1/2" thick.  I cut it up and put it in my nest boxes.  If a hen poops in a box it drops through and the eggs dont sit in it.  I seldom get dirty eggs anymore.  I never wash the eggs I sell.  If I get a couple slightly dirty I use green scrubby pad to brush the off dry

Offline Cindi

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #23 on: February 27, 2008, 10:38:18 am »
Last summer I found a large pc of some kind of erosion control blanket that was made up of a web type plastic material about 1/2" thick.  I cut it up and put it in my nest boxes.  If a hen poops in a box it drops through and the eggs dont sit in it.  I seldom get dirty eggs anymore.  I never wash the eggs I sell.  If I get a couple slightly dirty I use green scrubby pad to brush the off dry

Danno, hey that was pretty interesting.  I am rethinking for sure what to use for nesting.  Straw is pretty good I guess, but I am thinking that hemlock shavings may be better.  I can't imagine what you are talking about, but it sounds very cool.  I use hemlock shavings for things now and then.  Have a beautiful and wonderful, great day, love this beautiful life we live.  Cindi
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Offline poka-bee

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #24 on: February 27, 2008, 12:54:14 pm »
Danno, what a great idea, Im gonna look for some, I too use a scrubby for the chunks...it's funny people are turned off by the "natural" stuff..if they only knew what really goes on and into the processed junk they buy.... :-X
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Offline Beekissed

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #25 on: March 17, 2008, 11:02:22 pm »
I agree, Poka-bee!  The commercial eggs come from chicken H*ll!!  I live in a county that seems to be the commercial chicken capital of the world!  The smell in the spring and summer, as you drive by, makes you gag and gasp for air! 

That site was very, very interesting!  I read a book once that described preparing eggs for an ocean voyage where they coated the eggs in vaseline!  This stored the eggs for 3-4 months without refrigeration.  But nothing I've read tops the lengths of time described in that link!  I have found if the eggs are gathered in a timely fashion, no matter what material I use for nest boxes, I rarely have fecal matter on the shells.  My hens just don't seem to poop in the nests....don't know why. 
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Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #26 on: March 19, 2008, 12:36:50 am »
The more crowded the hen house the more dirty eggs you'll get.  Same is true for cracked and broken eggs.  When you have too many hens fighting over too few nest boxes the dirt and the eggs fly and the hens and roosters end up roosting in the nests.  You're also more likely to develop an egg eater that way too.

Ample space means clean eggs.
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Offline Cindi

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #27 on: March 19, 2008, 08:54:10 am »
Oh, Brian, some good words of advice.  I have four nest boxes in each of the chickens houses, I find that they all like to lay their eggs in only two of these boxes.  How can the chickens be encouraged to use more instead of cramming all their eggs into just the two boxes.  That makes 100% perfect sense about what you are saying, but my chickens like to cluster their eggs.  Thoughts?  Have the greatest and most fabulous day, love this life.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Beekissed

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #28 on: March 19, 2008, 02:55:25 pm »
I agree, Cindi!  I have 10 nests for 7 hens right now and they all chose to lay their eggs in a galvanized washtub in the storage shed....on the bare metal!  I lined it with hay and they have completely abandoned the nice, cozy nesting boxes and all lay in the tub.  Go figure!  My nest boxes are the old galvanized, mount-on-the wall unit with the fold down perches, so they are more than adequate in design and space, but the girls prefer to climb into my old washtubs up on a stand in the next building.  Fickle women!
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Offline JordanM

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #29 on: March 19, 2008, 06:53:27 pm »
I have laying chickens, but right now the other chickens are eating each others eggs. Any ideas how to make them stop. They dont break as many in the summer when the get to go outside in the yard and run around and yes they are getting all the food they can eat. I sell my eggs here to my family for $1 a dozen. I have a chicken right now that can barely stand and has go tumors on his feet and couldnt even stand on the roost so i brought him in the heated garadge and he is doing better, any ideas what is wrong with him.

Thanks Jordan

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #30 on: March 19, 2008, 11:47:20 pm »
I have laying chickens, but right now the other chickens are eating each others eggs. Any ideas how to make them stop. They dont break as many in the summer when the get to go outside in the yard and run around and yes they are getting all the food they can eat. I sell my eggs here to my family for $1 a dozen. I have a chicken right now that can barely stand and has go tumors on his feet and couldnt even stand on the roost so i brought him in the heated garadge and he is doing better, any ideas what is wrong with him.

Thanks Jordan

The only solution to egg eating, that works, that I've found is intentional Ax-idents.  Is Intentional Accidents an Oxymoron?  I think so.  But intentional ax-idents isn't.

For your chicken with gout, try rubbing olive oil and honey into the scales on his legs.  He probably has a foot fungus of some type and bathing the feet in olive oil twice a day seems to work.  Adding the honey will aid with any bacteria ride-a-longs.
Life is a school.  What have you learned?   :brian:      The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

Offline ooptec

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #31 on: March 27, 2008, 04:54:27 pm »
Gee, $1 a dozen??  Isn't that less that 1/2 of the cost of a factory produced doz. in the superstores??

I see here a doz. free range factory farmed eggs, so that means they get to free range packed shoulder to shoulder on the barn floor and still never see the sun, are going for $3.50 a doz. and I know a lot of people who look at what they eat would not blink at $4 doz. for real farmyard free range eggs. (or more)

cheers

peter

Offline reinbeau

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Re: Viability of home grown eggs
« Reply #32 on: March 27, 2008, 10:18:44 pm »
I buy farm fresh eggs from a local farm for $2.50 a dozen.  I can see the hens from the road as I drive buy, they're happily pecking around on the ground under pine trees and in a nice open field.  I know these hens are living as hens should live.  I won't buy a supermarket egg ever again (especially after this year, when I'll have my own laying hens).

 

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