Don't Ever Eat a Rotten Egg

Ever since we cut down the big Water Oak tree that died, we've had a big pile of wood that I have been meaning to cut up and use for firewood next year.  It doesn't really bother me, and I'll get to it when I get to it, but it has created a good place for chickens to hide.  Hens are notorious for finding new places to nest.  

I happened to be walking past the wood pile this weekend and something caught my eye.  It was a nest that contained 11 eggs.  They were dirty and there was no telling how long they had been there. 

Normally, when I find nests like this, we feed them to the dogs.  Both Big Boy and Promise make quick work of fresh, or not so fresh, eggs.  At this time of the year, our hens aren't laying too many eggs, and I don't like feeding the eggs to the dogs.  I for sure don't want to risk eating an old egg found in a hidden nest! However, fortunately there is a trick for determining if an egg is fresh or old.  Now, let me preface this by saying I would never give or sell eggs found in a hidden nest.  These are for personal consumption only.

Testing an egg for freshness doesn't require any expense or testing equipment.  All you need is a 5 gallon bucket filled with water.
 

Gently place the eggs that you found in a hidden nest into the bucket of water.  If any of the eggs float, they are rotten!  Throw them away - better yet, bury them in the garden, being careful not to bust it before it is in the hole.  If the egg stays on the bottom, but one end tilts up, it is a little old, but not rotten.  If it lays flat on the bottom, it is a fresh egg.

As you can notice in the photo below, ALL of the eggs are lying flat on the bottom.  These eggs are fresh and our family will eat them up.

The reason this test works is that there is a small air pocket in the egg when it is laid.  As an egg ages, the porous eggshell allows fluid inside the egg to evaporate while simultaneously allowing more air into the egg and the air pocket in the egg expands.  As the air pocket expands with age, the egg will float off of the bottom.

Even though all these eggs are fresh, we'll still eat them first as putting them in water washes off the protective "bloom" that the hen coats the egg with that protects the contents of the egg from bacteria.  If you wash this off, the life of the egg will be diminished. 

So... if the egg won't sink, you'd better re-think (eating that egg!)

Daisy Comes Home

Daisy is the matriarch of our current Jersey herd.  Back in 2007, she came to us as a baby calf on the side of her mother, Momma Cow.  Momma Cow passed away years back, but Daisy remains.  She's getting up in years a bit and has been having trouble getting bred the last few times we've had her get together with a bull.

We've had her get checked out by our veterinarian, but he cannot find anything wrong with her that would be keeping her from getting pregnant when all the other cows have gotten bred.  So, we have a friend in Hathaway with a registered Jersey bull.  He agreed to let us bring Daisy down to stay for a few cycles with his bull. 

Our friend saw evidence that Daisy was bred by his bull, but this has happened before without her actually becoming pregnant.  Two days ago, blood samples were taken to check to see if Daisy is carrying a calf.  We await the results.  We picked up Daisy and brought her back to home.  She arrived in the trailer and began walking to meet up with the rest of the little herd that she hasn't seen in a couple of months.  There was lots of mooing and bellowing...

Cows go through some sort of a greeting process where they touch noses and then start walking around sniffing each other.

And then they sniff some more...

After a couple of months all the cows are back together again.

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We should hear results of the blood work to confirm pregnancy in about 10 days.  If the results come back that Daisy is open (not pregnant), we'll have to make some hard decisions.  On a three acre pasture, we can't keep cows that can't provide calves.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.  In the meantime, we'll pray that Daisy is carrying a calf - a heifer calf!