First Omelet
October 25th, 2013 · 3 Comments · Posted in farming
We are collecting one egg per day from our 28 laying hens (and two roosters). For some reason, the hens that are laying are all using the same box in their mobile coop, even though they have a choice of eight boxes in all. I put a used golf ball in each box, along with some shredded straw, to encourage them to lay. Still, for reason only a chicken can understand, they are only using the one box.
I try to keep the hens in the coop until sometime after 10 each morning so they will lay in the boxes provided and not try to hide their eggs elsewhere on the property. One local homesteader friend assured me that chickens typically lay their eggs in the morning, so keeping them confined would make finding the eggs a bit easier. In our case, though, we have yet to find any eggs before we release the chickens in the morning. The eggs don’t appear until much later in the day. That means the hens, after being released to forage in the fields, return to the coop and climb into the next box later in the day to do their laying. How considerate of them!
Yesterday, I even found one hen in the act. I think she was a bit startled to find me peering down at her before she had a chance to deposit her egg. Chickens like privacy while laying, I’m told. Do you supposed they’re embarrassed to be seen in such a vulnerable position?
So far, we’ve collected enough eggs for daughter to bake a cake and to prepare our first omelet for breakfast yesterday. See how pretty it is? The eggs are still rather small. It took four of them to make this cheese omelet.
Cracking open an egg from a hen that roams freely on pasture can be quite a revelation. So fresh, the yolks are extremely firm and well formed. They would be perfect for poaching. The second thing you notice is how orange the yolks are. The intense color comes from carotenoids in the plants the hens eat in the fields. Chickens are omnivores, so they will eat grass and weeds in addition to worms and any bugs they find while they are wandering around all day. They love to scratch the ground and peck for wild food, supplementing the locally milled grains we put out for them.
There is some dispute whether darker yolks with more carotenoids are more nutritious than the eggs with paler yolks you buy at the supermarket. We like to think they are. And we certainly like the idea that our chickens get to roam freely and eat the way they were intended, rather than being confined to an industrial egg factory.
Nest sharing! hens are funny like that 😉
Those eggs look great, bet they taste good too.
Indeed, Celia. They were delicious.
Your Farm is a dream. I love reading every post about your farm adventures. I will never have a farm myself so following your exploits makes up for all my farm yearnings. Thanks