Category: Eggs

How To Preserve Eggs

February 22, 2018 Eggs No Comments

If you followed the tips on our earlier post to boost egg production and now your cartons are overflowing, here’s quick way to preserve some of those eggs for later.

  1. Begin by deciding how many eggs you consider a “serving.” How many eggs do you typically eat at a time? How many eggs are in your favorite cake recipe?
  2. Crack as many eggs as you need for your “serving” into a bowl.
  3. Add just a small pinch of salt and whisk eggs. The salt will help with preservation. You may also want to add pepper or other seasonings if you are going to be using your eggs to scramble for breakfast.
  4. Empty eggs into freezer safe bags such as these Ziploc Freezer Quart Bags.
  5. Seal tightly and label to tell how many eggs are in the bag and the date.
  6. Lay freezer bag flat and freeze.

It’s as simple as that! I would recommend that you use the eggs within about 2 months to ensure they still taste their best but they will keep longer if needed.

This is also a good idea to do before an outing, such as a camping trip, when you’ll want your fresh eggs without worrying about breaking them during transportation. The frozen eggs act sort of like an ice pack when placed in a cooler and it’s much easier than juggling a carton full of eggs.

And don’t stop there! Get creative!

Do you like omelets? Try adding in some diced ham or shredded cheese for a ready to go breakfast. All these things freeze well for a short period of time and will thaw overnight in the fridge. Enjoy!

Getting Chickens To Lay More During Winter

February 20, 2018 Chicken Health, Eggs No Comments

If it’s winter in your part of the world, I’m sure that you’ve noticed that you’re not getting as many yummy eggs from your flock as you’re used to. No worries! Follow a few tips below to ensure that you’re eating omelets and quiche in no time!

 

 

Give them some light! Chickens lay best when the days are longer so shorter winter days can cause egg production to drop. Try setting up a light in their coop (even Christmas lights have been reported to work.) Use a timer to make things easier on you and aim for about 16 hours of daylight.

Are they spring chicks? The older the hen, the less eggs you will get. Period. To keep your cartons full, make sure your chickens aren’t past their prime.

Feed them right. If you’re not already doing so, consider adding laying pellets to their diet and be sure to give them as much green as possible. If you have winter weeds popping up, be sure to treat them with some!

Make your chickens comfy. Though this may not necessarily give you more eggs, it is an important part of keeping chickens though the winter. The coop doesn’t need to be air tight (ventilation is important) but it should have clean straw and fresh water.

And in case you’re counting down the days to spring, get an early start by checking out Permaculture Chicken: Incubation Handbook.

Best winter egg-layers

June 12, 2014 Chicken breeds, Eggs 5 Comments

Laying hensUnlike
many homesteaders, I’m not willing to keep a heritage breed if it
doesn’t pull its weight on my farm, so when egg numbers dwindled this
winter, I started pondering the idea of adding a few hybrids back into
the flock.  I know from experience that Golden Comets
keep plugging along all winter with barely lowered production, and I’ve
read similar reports about other production strains like Red Sex-links
and White Leghorns.

Henderson’s
Chicken Breed Chart
sticks to heirlooms, but puts a snowflake beside species that are
reported to lay well during cold weather.  Their winter egg-layers
include Buckeye, Chantecler, Delaware, Dominique (aka Dominiker),
Faverolle, Jersey Giant, New Hampshire (aka New Hampshire Red),
Orpington, Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Red, Sussex, and
Wyandotte.  However, if you pay attention to the number of eggs
along Nest eggswith
the winter-laying habit, you’ll see that only Rhode Island Reds are
prolific layers year-round as well as being good winter layers,
followed up with Delaware, Faverolle, New Hampshire, and Sussex.

Another thing to
consider if your egg production dwindles in cold weather is being more
hard-nosed about age of your hens.  First-year pullets will
usually lay through the winter without a problem, but after that,
heirloom breeds especially are prone to take a long time off after molting.  So if you want to
have winter eggs and you’re adamant about sticking to heirloom breeds,
your best option might be to raise new layers each spring early enough
that they’ll be in full lay by fall.

Egg laying

To get an idea for the difference between winter-laying ability of one
year old and two year old hens, take a look at the chart to the left,
showing our flock’s average number of eggs per day last winter (blue)
and this winter (purple).  Despite going into the 2011/2012 winter
with only three Australorps who were old enough to really be laying
well, plus three Marans who started a bit late and mostly stopped, we
still had more eggs than this winter with our larger flock of three
mature Australorps, two mature Cuckoo Marans, one Australorp pullet,
and three Rhode Island Reds.  (As a side note, even though they were sold
to us as first year pullets, after perusing their combs
Thrifty Chicken Breedsand the way they mostly stopped laying for the winter, I’m pretty sure
those Rhode Island Reds were actually going into their second year when
we bought them.)  All this despite taking care to ensure our
flock has everything they need to thrive over the winter.

In the end, I think I’m
going to hedge my bets by adding a few hybrids to our flock, and also
by keeping my layers for only one year rather than two.  While the
shorter life span means we spend more feed getting new birds up and
running each year, it probably evens out once you figure in all the old
hens who take the winter off but keep eating.  Plus, we’ll have
more delicious stewing
hens to eat, which
is a very good thing.