Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE => Topic started by: BjornBee on January 15, 2011, 01:25:48 pm

Title: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: BjornBee on January 15, 2011, 01:25:48 pm
Last night, my mom was counting chickens as they were being put in for the night. The count has remained at 13 for the past couple weeks since we lost two one day and found a pile of feathers.

So the count was 12...and as my mom looked around, she saw two more over in the pole barn. She called the chickens and one came running into the chicken house about 50 yards away. The other one disappeared.

This morning, I went over to the farm and started looking for the missing chicken, while thinking the whole time my mom really has lost it this time. About the time we were getting ready to give up, and after looking about everywhere, we see a chicken sticking her head up from inside a deep box stacked in a pile about 7 feet high.

Yep....she had a nice collection of 6 eggs and a nice nest. I picked her up and carried her over to the chicken house. Yes....14 chickens. Counted again....14!

I took the box down and as I was placing the eggs in a trash bag, a couple broke open. Wow...did they stink.

So our first year with chickens and we had one disappear on January first, to go off and start brooding.  :-D  How long she started that nest before being missed is unknown.

Hard to think that she wanted to brave the danger and the very cold temps we have been having. But she looks fine.

I guess this summer the kids will have to keep a keen eye open for makeshift nests.  :)
Title: Re: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: Rosalind on January 15, 2011, 03:45:36 pm
Congratulations!  X:X

Were the eggs fertile? Maybe you can look forward to MORE chickens come spring, if she is that broody!
Title: Re: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: BjornBee on January 15, 2011, 05:28:15 pm
Thank you Rosalind.

Fertile......  :shock:  After the first one broke open, and the stench hit me, I wasn't picking through no eggs.

Although something I seen on a traveling food show (bald fat dude) had me thinking of some oriental buried rotten egg dish.  :-D 

In this cold weather.....how old do you think eggs would be to be really rotten? I'm not sure how long or how well attended the eggs were. But I know they were dead.
Title: Re: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: AllenF on January 15, 2011, 05:45:59 pm
The egg rotted from the 90 something degree hen sitting on top of it.  It is something she got broody to early in the year.  Just weird.   I hope you gave her a good talking to about all she has put you through.
Title: Re: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: Rosalind on January 15, 2011, 06:26:34 pm
Oh, agree w/ Allen, they go rotten from the hen setting them. I keep my chickens in an unheated coop (today's high temp: 25F), and every once in a while they manage to hide an egg or three well enough that by the time I find it behind the feed bins, it is rotten.

Do you have a rooster, or do your neighbors have a free-ranging rooster? That will be sufficient to fertilize your eggs.

If you don't have one, do you want one?  :evil: I've got some going spare...
Title: Re: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: hardwood on January 15, 2011, 09:37:53 pm
"1000 year old" eggs are all the rage in the orient and with some of the "yuppie's" in the US but it's my understanding that they start with fertilized eggs...maybe? Next time you come across a stinker, bury it for 10 years or so 'til it turns black and sell it. (better try it out on your Mother in law first( :-D

Scott
Title: Re: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: Rosalind on January 16, 2011, 09:20:46 am
Century eggs, according to my Chinese colleagues, are actually sorta pickled--you have to wrap them in ashes and clay and salt so no oxygen gets in, and then it kinda ferments, like lutefisk.

I can't say anything about other folks' dietary habits, I grew up eating liverwurst-and-limburger sandwiches.  :-P

Title: Re: One missing chicken returns home.......
Post by: VolunteerK9 on January 16, 2011, 11:14:59 am
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Century egg, also known as preserved egg, hundred-year egg, thousand-year egg, thousand-year-old egg, and millennium egg (or Pidan in Mandarin), is a Chinese cuisine ingredient made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, depending on the method of processing. Through the process, the yolk becomes a dark green and creamy with a smell of odor of sulphur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, transparent jelly with little flavor.[citation needed] The transforming agent in the century egg is its alkaline material, which gradually raises the pH of the egg to around 9, 12, or more during the curing process.[1] This chemical process breaks down some of the complex, flavorless proteins and fats, which produces a variety of smaller flavorful compounds.

And here is balut:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A balut is a fertilized duck (or chicken) egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell.

Popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, balut are mostly sold by street vendors in the regions where they are available. It is commonly sold as streetfood in the Philippines. They are common, everyday food in some other countries in Southeast Asia, such as in Laos and Thailand (where it is called Khai Luk), Cambodia (Pong tea khon in Cambodian),[1] and Vietnam (Trứng vịt lộn or Hột vịt lộn in Vietnamese). They are often served with beer.


I think I'll just stick with scrambled and over easy though  :-D