"Country" Eggs

As the green grass suggests in the picture below, Spring has Sprung!  I look at the last sign of Spring being when the pecan trees start to put on leaves and all of our pecan trees have bright green leaves popping out on the previously barren limbs. It's here - and it's about time.  I'm sure those in the north would agree and are anxiously awaiting Spring to come to them.

In addition to getting the garden in, Springtime signals the on-set of a huge increase in egg production from our flock of laying hens.  We have probably 65 layers, 7 roosters, and then 23 pullets that have not laid their first egg yet.  All but the pullets are roaming free over their 3 acre pasture, rooting around for bugs and worms, scratching through cow patties on a quest for tasty morsels.  Oh, they think it's heaven.

Spring Green

Like people, they enjoy their freedom.  They can stretch out and go where they like, do what they like, and when they like.  All within reason, of course.  We have one Aracauna hen that shimmies her way through the hog wire and she's gotten into a bad habit of scratching the mulch away from the base of our blueberry bushes.  I've got to break her of that habit somehow.

Over the winter, the reduction in protein and nutritive quality of the forage coupled with shorter daylight hours results in a drastic reduction in egg production.  Oh, we could keep lights on in the hen house and purchase laying pellets to supplement and feed the girls, but we're trying to do things a little more naturally and abide within the seasons and cycles of life as God intended.  This practice also extends the productive life of our laying hens.

Anyway, the fresh, tender grasses of Spring, bugs, worms and other goodies and longer days, flip the hens' "switch" and they begin to lay eggs abundantly.  Let's look in on one of their nesting places in the hen house:

One vacant nesting box

The hens, at their appointed time each day, mosey into the hen house, or barn, or chicken tractor, or hay bale, or any other various and sundry places they decide to lay their eggs, and they'll sit in the soft, clean hay and produce some of nature's finest and most quality protein of any food available. 

Hard at Work

Once done, they'll sing a little song.  It's a happy tune and although I'm not conversant in the Chickenese language, I would assume that they are proudly exclaiming that they've just done a good thing - just as you do when you finish mowing the lawn or completing a project that you are passionate about.  Then they plop down and scurry back out to the pasture to chase bugs.  Now that's REAL "fast food!"

A solitary brown egg

That one egg quickly becomes a beautiful collection of eggs of all shapes, sizes and colors, representing the collective work of Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Black Stars, and Aracaunas. And though each egg might look different, they are all delicious.

A nest of assorted fresh eggs

It's Benjamin's job each afternoon to grab his wire bucket and head out to the pasture and gather eggs before he goes to track practice.  Egg gathering requires lots of skills.  One must be curious as a detective, careful as an archaeologist, have the keen eye of a surveyor and the sure, steady hands of a surgeon.  Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little.  

A tisket, a tasket, a red wire egg gathering basket

The basket full of eggs is brought to the back patio where they'll be sorted and packaged.  On beautiful dry days, Benjamin just puts them into the cartons.  You really don't want to wash them because the chicken puts what's called a "bloom" on her eggs and this, in effect, seals the egg and keeps bacteria from entering the porous egg.  

On wet, rainy days, however, the eggs require some clean-up.  You see, when the chickens jump up into the nesting boxes, their feet are muddy and they tend to step on the eggs, making them dirty. Friends and family members give us their egg cartons and we use them again and again to package some good old country eggs in.

It's nice to have delicious eggs in abundance.  If ever the words ring out, "What's for supper?" and nothing's in the pot, eggs provide a quick nutritious, versatile protein to start the conversation. Although the color of the eggshells doesn't affect the flavor of the egg, free range, pastured chicken's eggs are far and away better tasting than the 'factory eggs' you purchase at the grocery store. There's no comparison, really.