keeperofthehens:kedreeva:This is for my friends who were discussing eggs yesterday, and the differen

keeperofthehens:kedreeva:This is for my friends who were discussing eggs yesterday, and the differences in them.First let me say, eggs are amazing. They are little external wombs which contain everything needed to take 1 chicken (or duck, or whatever) from zygote to fluffball. They need to keep the developing embryo safe from infection/disease for at least 21 days, but still allow moisture to pass through the pores in the shell. The chalaza inside keep the yolk suspended so the developing chick attached to the yolk (because the chick is not the yolk, the yolk is basically a chicken placenta… yum) does not get jostled unduly or stuck to the shell. It has to be strong enough to withstand a mother bird sitting atop it for 3 weeks, yet fragile enough that a newborn chick can pip through from the inside to hatch. So I repeat, eggs are amazing.That said, let’s look at chicken eggs. Chicken egg shells come in 2 colors- white or blue. The common white eggs in stores are typically laid by white leghorns. The brown color a lot of people associate with “natural” or “cage free” or “farm fresh” eggs is actually “painted” on in the egg tract of some breeds of chickens. Depending on the breed, this brown color can be extremely light (think pink/yellow color) or extremely dark (think chocolate) or anywhere in between. However, all shades of brown are just a coating on the outside of a white egg. There is no nutritional difference between white/blue/brown chicken eggs.There are also green eggs, but these are a result of cross-breeding between blue egg layers (a south-american breed called Araucanas, or their off-breeds, Ameraucanas and easter-eggers) and brown egg layers. These green egg layers are called “olive eggers” and the eggs shells are still blue with brown painted over the top. In the second picture up top, you can see the color variation in my own birds’ eggs. I don’t have any turkey or peafowl eggs right now, since those birds do not lay year-round. Their eggs are white with brown speckling (turkey) and tan with brown speckling (peahen). The speckling happens in a lot of wild bird eggs like quail eggs. Pheasant eggs are often greenish-brown and so smooth they look like rocks. When I had Sebright chickens, their eggs were white, but had a pinkish hue to them that was really attractive. Let’s not talk about Emu eggs.Eggs come in a lot of sizes. If you look at the top picture, from right to left the eggs are from: blue laced Cochin, easter egger, Isa brown, Isa brown, and Muscovy duck. The smallest egg is considered “medium” sized. The blue and smaller-sized Isa brown eggs are considered “large” eggs at the supermarket. The largest brown egg is considered “jumbo” sized. They do not sell duck eggs at the supermarket. Muscovy ducks are a production-breed duck raised for meat and eggs, but their eggs are smaller than those of Pekin ducks, and smaller than the eggs my peafowl lay. Turkey eggs fall somewhere around the size of the “large” size Isa brown egg. There are “bantam” breed chickens that lay tiny little eggs and these eggs are the same as regular eggs, but tiny.The final picture is of what is inside of the eggs from my birds. They are yellow right now because it is winter here. In the summer time, when my birds have access to many bugs and all the weeds and grass they can stuff themselves with, their egg yolks turn darker, to orange or even almost red-orange. These are my favorite eggs; SO MUCH FLAVOR. You’ve probably noticed the yellow color in the chicken egg white (called the albumen). That color is atypical and probably a result of a high amount of vitamin B2 in my chickens’ diets right now, so it’s not really a problem.In the final picture, the bottom yolk is the egg from the largest isa brown egg in the first picture, and the top yolk is from the duck egg. The difference in size is partially due to the size of the hatchling, but has a lot more to do with the fact that chicken eggs are incubated for 21 days and most duck eggs must incubate for 28-30 days. Muscovy eggs are the exception, and must incubate for 35 days- this is one of the many good reasons to keep Muscovy ducks rather than Pekins, if you prefer the yolks to the whites.Egg storage! Eggs are refrigerated when you buy them from the store, and you have to refrigerate them when you bring them home. The average life expectancy of eggs from the store is about 2-3 weeks once they are at your house. This is very short for an egg. Remember, eggs naturally have to keep bacteria and stuff out for at least the 3 weeks it takes for a chick to incubate, and chickens only lay at most (at the peak of their lifespans and laying seasons) 1 egg per day, and will often collect clutches of 6-12 eggs, which means close to 2 weeks before they sit to begin incubation. This means eggs must naturally be able to handle being out of a refrigerator for closer to 5 weeks, and that’s just for hatching.So why is it so short from the store? Because they have to clean the eggs, and when they do this, it scrubs off the natural layer of oil the hen coats onto the egg as its laid. This protective layer keeps out dirt and bacteria, and when it’s scrubbed off, that protection is not only stripped away, but often bacteria is pushed in through the pores in the process. The egg companies then spray-coat the eggs with a mineral oil of their own before shipping them out, but the damage has already been done.Without that process, eggs can last much, much longer. I don’t wash any of the eggs from my own chickens (most of them are naturally spotless anyway- the first two pictures are eggs from my chickens without any washing at all), and I store them in a large bowl on my counter. Eggs don’t tend to last long around here; people at my work purchase a dozen eggs for $3, and I clear the bowl out one or twice a week. However, some of those people have reported back that the eggs were still good up to at least four months later (refrigerated, of course. I don’t recommend keeping eggs out of the fridge for more than 3 weeks).The easiest (and probably most reliable) way to tell if an egg is still good is to fill a bowl with cold water and put the eggs into it. A good egg will sink to the bottom and rest on its side. An egg that is still good but needs to be thoroughly cooked will sink to the bottom but stand on end (or close to it). I use these sorts only for baking or putting into other foods. A bad egg will float.I hope that answers all your egg questions, friends.This has all sorts of wonderful information on not only eggs but also chickens and other sorts of domestic fowl! -- source link

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