Chicken myths and old wives' tales, please!

[savingdogs]

What a fun thread! I don't have any more interesting ones to add except to say I get repeated questions if they green eggs are green inside?
As if the brown ones are brown inside?

I have people who prefer the brown eggs and think they taste better. I think they just equate the brown eggs with home-raised eggs because so many in the store are white.

Also, one friend told me "I don't want to know" when I said my eggs were fertilized. She is vegetarian.

 

[dsqard]

I have heard a couple of odd ones that surprised me. A coworker who had chickens when he was little thought that the rooster determined the color of the eggs laid. He didn't mean what color the progeny of the rooster might lay, he meant the color the hens would lay if they mated with the rooster. The one that really surprised me was my mother asking me if I was going to "inject" the eggs with the rooster's semen so they would be fertile for incubation? HUH? I just started laughing and told her no, I will let the rooster have his fun!

Of course DH had the usual questions about fertile eggs when we got the rooster. I explained that no they don't taste or look any different and no we won't be cracking open an egg with a partially formed chick in it since we collect at least once a day. Once I showed him pictures of fertile eggs and explained to him about incubation he was fine with it.

He also wouldn't believe me that the insides of a blue or green egg is the same as any other color egg until we cracked one of ours open.

 

[kburen]

I don't have any new funny ones....Had to explain to several coworkers about the whole getting eggs with or without a rooster thing. I just have finicky (sp?) parents LOL Daddy has told me he won't eat any of my eggs when my babies start to lay because blue or green eggs just aren't right (he won't even eat a brown egg). He KNOWS they're the same....Just a visual thing (I guess the same way even though I KNOW I dont mind the taste of mushrooms, I won't eat them if I know they're there because I KNOW they are a fungus LOL) and Momma isn't thrilled about the fact that I'll have a rooster so the eggs will probably be fertile...She doesn't like the idea that she's eating something that with just adding some heat would be a baby. Oh and at Thanksgiving my Aunt asked me if the eggs I used to make the deviled eggs were from my chickens or not (first off, I guess that shows a little ignorance, knowing that she's seen pics and was aware that at the time my babies were only 3 weeks old) and said when she heard I was making the deviled eggs she had second thoughts about eating them if they came from MY eggs. I guess that goes to the "won't eat fresh eggs from a chicken's butt" thing.

 

[fc]

Hey, we're making fun of non-chicken people, but need to laugh at our own notions. A lot of things we believe and propose are not based on research.

 

[peewee6765]

if you give a mold bird some cider vinegar every day a week before you kill it and it will taste the same as a six month pullet! (I dont know if its true 'cause I don't keep meat birds but please someone try it)

 

[RedKate]

My sister in law insisted our eggs must be 'covered in poop' (she didn't say poop). Well? They come from the same place as the eggs you buy in the store come from and THOSE aren't covered in poop. . . . and one of my co-workers can't IMAGINE eating my eggs, he won't say why.

 

[Santa Walt]

I love this thread! I haven't laughed so much in a log time, and I laugh a lot. I was going to reply to the one about corn making a chicken hot in the summer and its response, but A.T Hagan already answered the response appropriately.

One I do want to respond to to the one from bywaterdog which said, "If a chicken looks at you when its being killed, your face will appear in its eyes after death." This one may be partially true. Experimental psychologist studying perception have found that the last image seen by a person remains on the retina of the eye for a period of time. I do not that it can be seen by looking at the eye, but they have a means to seeing that image and even making a photo of it. I have not idea how it is done, or if it would work on a chicken, but I suspect that it would because, in function if not form, mammal eyes function pretty the same. The point is that if a chicken looks at you as you kill it, that image may still be on its retina for a while, making the statement partly true.

The question I would have is why anyone would want to see the last image a chicken saw.

One can learn some strange things in an advanced experimental psychology class.

 

[greenshade]

Quote:
A "Come to Jesus Meeting" for a bad bird?

 

[Ferrret]

Quote:
My BF *wants* green eggs because of Dr. Suess. He wants them so much that he says that if our Americauna doesn't lay green eggs, he'll trade her for one that does.

I have a friend that doesn't believe our silkies are real. She insisted that the pictures I showed her were fake, and that the chicks would grow out of their fuzz, and she's even suggested jokingly that they are merely robots that we are using to play a joke on her. They are a ridiculous looking bird, so I can understand not thinking they are real.

My brother made an ick face when I told him we would eat the eggs from our chickens, which was odd considering he's into eating healthy and a biology major. Other than that I haven't gotten any odd or bizarre questions about chickens.

 

[cybercat]

Here is an old myth that is still passed around.

Chickens do not lay in winter. Tell that to mine and many on here. Also they do not need extra light to do it. Chickens will lay when they lay no matter what as long as they are getting good balanced food.