No yolk!

[Andy M.]

I had a pet chicken named Gertie once, but she ran away. We never found her...

 

[PrincessFiona60]

When my son lived just on the fringes between suburbia and rural country, one day a hen appeared and took up residence under the bougainvillea in the front yard. They put out water for her and she was around for a couple of weeks, then just disappeared. There are coons, possums, etc. around here, so there's no telling what happened to her. She never laid any eggs. Her name was Gertie.

Maybe she was on vacation...

 

[tinlizzie]

 

[CWS4322]

Drum roll please...Silly Millie is SAFE. I gathered 4 eggs this morning, and then went out with some "treats" for the hens...I caught Silly Millie in the nesting box...and watched as she laid her first egg. Egg production is not quite at 100%, the Orpingtons are not yet laying. Hopefully they will be laying by mid-late November. And, the little egg from Monday had a yolk. So, hopefully all the other little eggs I now have will have yolks as well... Gertrude is a good chicken name...

Chickens don't fly well (they tend to fly close to the ground like turkeys--and I think the longest recorded chicken flight was 1.5 minutes) nor do they stray very far from their coops. Of course, it takes a bit to get them "bonded" to their coop, but once they are, they don't usually wander very far. Mine are usually within 30-50 yards of the coop, often they are only about 12 feet from it. If they hear a new noise, they head for the coop.

 

[tinlizzie]

Waaaaaah! I wanna chicken too! Guess I'll have to settle for being a VCW. (vicarious chicken wrangler)

 

[purple.alien.giraffe]

Name suggestions:
Georgia
Annabel
Martha
Eliza
Shirley
Edna
Dorcas (taken from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers)

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Yea! Silly Millie!!!

 

[buckytom]

I imagine there's a huge market for yolk-less eggs.

Better than Egg Beaters and better than throwing away the yolk.

i'm sure you don't realize what might come out of such thinking, but OMG, i certainly hope the food industry doesn't try to mess with hens and homones in order to try for yolk-less eggs.
birds, in such a long, successful evolution, are already the most prolific breeding creatures at immature ages.
i can see a day where food companies feed chicks drugs so they never develop yolks.

sorry about the rant.

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

Tom mate my chicken shed is very old, my wife will not let me refurb it as she knows it will lead to feathers flying.

 

[CWS4322]

That's too bad, Bolas. Free-range eggs are lower in cholesterol than store eggs...chicken poo is great fertilizer for the garden, and chickens are very entertaining. There's nothing like gathering the eggs when they are still warm, bringing them in, tossing them into a CI and watching them dance around the pan. The whites don't overlap. And then, the absolutely "out-of-this-world" taste. I'm going to go gather some eggs when the sun comes up and do just that, have the freshest eggs I can possibly have for breakfast.

 

[CWS4322]

i'm sure you don't realize what might come out of such thinking, but OMG, i certainly hope the food industry doesn't try to mess with hens and homones in order to try for yolk-less eggs.
birds, in such a long, successful evolution, are already the most prolific breeding creatures at immature ages.
i can see a day where food companies feed chicks drugs so they never develop yolks.

sorry about the rant.

The broodiness has already been bred out of a lot of birds and made it so meat chickens grow at such a rate, that many breeds' legs can't support them. Few live to be 18 months if one were so inclined to have a chicken that is of a breed for meat as a pet. The double-yolkers don't produce eggs as long as single yolkers, double-yolk eggs are usually larger, which can put the hen's life at risk. Yolk-less eggs are not the norm. Eggs are a perfect source of protein--why mess with perfection?

 

[purple.alien.giraffe]

The broodiness has already been bred out of a lot of birds and made it so meat chickens grow at such a rate, that many breeds' legs can't support them. Few live to be 18 months if one were so inclined to have a chicken that is of a breed for meat as a pet. The double-yolkers don't produce eggs as long as single yolkers, double-yolk eggs are usually larger, which can put the hen's life at risk. Yolk-less eggs are not the norm. Eggs are a perfect source of protein--why mess with perfection?

Plus the yoke is super yummy! If the yolk of an egg is ever a dietary problem then I'll eat the real thing less often rather than eat just the whites or something like egg beaters.

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

That's too bad, Bolas. Free-range eggs are lower in cholesterol than store eggs...chicken poo is great fertilizer for the garden, and chickens are very entertaining. There's nothing like gathering the eggs when they are still warm, bringing them in, tossing them into a CI and watching them dance around the pan. The whites don't overlap. And then, the absolutely "out-of-this-world" taste. I'm going to go gather some eggs when the sun comes up and do just that, have the freshest eggs I can possibly have for breakfast.

I could not agree more, we are lucky, chicken Tim lives nearby and his 30 hens produce luscious eggs. I like the fact that the run is fully enclosed with mesh so its vermin proof. We swap him veg for his eggs in the summer cakes and pies in the winter.

 

[Timothy]

I could not agree more, we are lucky, chicken Tim lives nearby and his 30 hens produce luscious eggs. I like the fact that the run is fully enclosed with mesh so its vermin proof. We swap him veg for his eggs in the summer cakes and pies in the winter.

"Chicken Tim" ??? Ha! Must be a relation....

My neighbor tried raising chickens once. Each night, for three nights, something attacked them in thier wire pen and pulled them out of the pen through the wire. He thought it was raccoons maybe, but by night 3, he had no more chickens. He never tried again.

I live in the middle of a big swamp that is probably millions of years old. Hawks, owls, even osprey control the skies and most of the open ground. I don't think a chicken would have a chance here if in the open.

There is a guy who raises them near me, but his coop is entirely enclosed and elevated. Not even a mouse could get in there.

 

[CWS4322]

Racoons will reach through wire and grab chickens. Typically they just bite the heads off. Skunks will dig under and get the chickens--again, biting the heads off. Hawks also bite the heads off, as do owls. I have wire on top and bottom of my enclosed run, and used hardware wire (1/4"). The coop is elevated so the chickens can get off the ground and away from predators. I lock mine in at dusk. During the day, at least one is standing guard, watching the sky, etc. They bolt for the coop and their perches if the one on sentry duty raises an alarm. They are really afraid of the airplanes that sometimes fly over. BTW, chickens eat mice and snakes.

 

[Timothy]

Racoons will reach through wire and grab chickens. Typically they just bite the heads off. Skunks will dig under and get the chickens--again, biting the heads off. Hawks also bite the heads off, as do owls. I have wire on top and bottom of my enclosed run, and used hardware wire (1/4"). The coop is elevated so the chickens can get off the ground and away from predators. I lock mine in at dusk. During the day, at least one is standing guard, watching the sky, etc. They bolt for the coop and their perches if the one on sentry duty raises an alarm. They are really afraid of the airplanes that sometimes fly over. BTW, chickens eat mice and snakes.

Very interesting, CWS! With the neighbor's chickens, nothing was left but feathers and blood along the inside and outside of the edges of the coop. It was pretty gory. The bodies were gone. He used the kind of wire mesh that has six sided openings about 2 inches in diameter.

You'd think that during that slaughter, they would have heard something.

My bedroom window is about 300 feet from there, so I guess I was out of range of hearing it. *Plus, I have old ears*.

 

[CWS4322]

There is typically 5 gr of fat in a large egg yolk. If one eats a low-fat diet, consuming eggs is not a bad thing. The type of cholesterol in eggs is dietary, not serum (blood) cholesterol. The fat in an egg is mostly polyunsaturated. The whole-food protein in eggs is what is used to measure the amount of whole-food protein in other foods. I think eggs are 93.7% whole-food protein which means the body uses the protein in eggs very efficiently for growth. This is more useable protein than milk, beef, and other foods. I guess the reason one would use just the whites to make omelettes, etc., is to avoid the additional 5 gr. of fat in the diet or to eliminate a source of fat. I'd pick to eliminate fat in another area--baked potato instead of french fries, for example.

 

[tinlizzie]

During the day, at least one is standing guard, watching the sky, etc. They bolt for the coop and their perches if the one on sentry duty raises an alarm. They are really afraid of the airplanes that sometimes fly over. BTW, chickens eat mice and snakes.

One of the most endearing things I remember about past-owned ducks and chickens was seeing them cock their heads sideways to eye those predators in the sky. Ducky Lucky wasn't just lucky.

Mice?? Now, snakes - that's no quite so surprising. I've watched herons in my yard eat small snakes.

I learn something new every day, and it's frequently here on DC.

 

[CWS4322]

tinlizzie--they LOVE mice. The one that catches a mouse runs for cover licketly-split--no interest in sharing. Mine have not actually caught a snake, but my MIL was terrified of snakes. When a child, all she had to do was scream when she saw a snake and the Plymouth Rocks would come running and kill the snake and eat it.. The person I bought my PRs from told me her's eat snakes (as well as mice).

 

[tinlizzie]

tinlizzie--they LOVE mice. The one that catches a mouse runs for cover licketly-split--no interest in sharing. Mine have not actually caught a snake, but my MIL was terrified of snakes. When a child, all she had to do was scream when she saw a snake and the Plymouth Rocks would come running and kill the snake and eat it.. The person I bought my PRs from told me her's eat snakes (as well as mice).

Great mental image, here.