Odd Eggs

One of Benjamin’s jobs each day is to go out with a basket and gather eggs that the hens have laid.  It’s not a bad job.  When it rains though, the eggs get muddy from hens stepping in and out of the laying boxes and packaging them becomes a chore.  Normally we don’t clean them at all as washing them removes the “bloom” from the egg that is the natural protective covering that seals the pores in the egg against bacteria.  Washing the egg also reduces its shelf-life.

Sometimes we find odd eggs and just this week we’ve found a few.  First our pullets (young hens) have just started to lay.  Pullet eggs are smaller than eggs from hens that have laid for a while.  “Beginner eggs,” I guess while their bodies are getting used to laying.  We call them pullet bullets.  Here are two ‘pullet bullets’ (on the left) right next to a normal egg (on the right).

2 Pullet bullets on left - Regular egg on right

We eat them just the same, except we’ve noticed a difference.  The hens that are free-ranging on pasture are running all over 3 acres eating whatever looks appetizing to a hen.  The pullets, however, while on pasture, are confined to a 12 foot by 6 foot area of the tractor.   I set them free once they start laying.  Due to their confinement in the tractor, the yolks of their eggs aren’t as rich and dark orange as our free range hens as seen in the photo below.

Pastured egg (left) and pullet in chicken tractor egg (on right)

That dark orange color is due to diet.  Pastured eggs are so good for you as they are loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids, beta carotene, and vitamins A, D, and E.  I have to release the pullets so their eggs can get as beautiful and healthy.

Second strange egg.  The fart egg.  Weird!  The fart egg is a malfunction when something triggers the chicken’s egg-making parts to produce an egg.  The strange thing is, if you crack it, the shell and underlying membrane is very tough and there is no yolk inside.  It’s strictly a glitch in the system and can come from pullets or older hens.  Don’t worry chickens, we ALL make mistakes.  The fart egg is sitting on top of the opened egg carton in the photo below.

The "fart" egg

Finally, in bizarro egg world there is what we call the ‘Rubber Egg.’  Here is a picture of one:

The Rubber Egg

It looks normal enough, right?  But check this out:

A Soft Shell

It is like a water balloon.  You can press in on it with your thumb kind of like one of those stress reliever things.

There's a dent in the egg

I looked up rubber eggs to see what causes that and learned that they are caused by:

·         Young layers: Yep, we certainly have those.

·         Stress (being chased by children): Believe it or not we have that phenomenon as well,

·         Old layers: Don’t we all start falling apart a little bit as we age? 

·         Low calcium: the article said to not feed your hens swiss chard as it affects their ability to absorb calcium.  Believe it or not, I had just thrown some swiss chard to the hens!

I absolutely love soft-shelled crabs.  So we’ll consider Soft-shelled eggs to be a delicacy as well and happily gobble our hen’s regular eggs, pullet bullets, fart eggs or rubber eggs.  We’ll eat them fried in a cast iron skillet:

Fried Eggs

 Or scrambled with potatoes, peppers mushrooms and green onions:

Scrambled Eggs

But I WON’T eat GREEN EGGS.  Sorry Dr. Seuss. 

I do not like them Sam-I-am,

I do not like green eggs and ham.