I am a newbie. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum...... My chickens are laying eggs and the shells are harder than the store bought ones. I am having to strike the egg twice. This is causing some dusty shell particles in my eggs. Is it the feed we are giving the chickens? Will I eventually learn to hit it hard enough the first time? Or is there some secret that this gal hasn't heard of yet?
Maybe a hammer? I haven't had that problem yet... I hope I don't. I think you will just have to hit them harder to crack em..
If they are small eggs the shells will be thicker as the hens generally use the same amount of calcium that they use on any given egg. As the eggs get larger the shells get thinner as the calcium is spread over a larger area. Just find a sharper edge to crack them on; the edge of a pan, back of a knife, etc.
Thanks for the back up. I am a newbie to the forum but I am 47 years old. So I have cracked a few eggs. Before I had my own chickens it was the side of the frying pan, edge of a fork or the edge of a knife. Try to do this now and I am getting the dust fragments. Maybe its not the shell and its the membrane inside the shell?!
Dont hit them on the edge of a bowl, pan, or counter. If you hit them on a flat surface you get less dust. Our EE lays super thick shells. They are easily twice as thick as our other birds.
In one of my cooking classes, we were told to never crack eggs against the edge of a bowl or cup - that it tends to force bits of eggshell into the egg. Instead they should be cracked against a flat surface, like a counter top. I've noticed that my hen's eggshells are stronger than the eggs I used to buy at the grocery. So I crack them against my granite countertops - works for me. (By the way, I see plenty of professional chefs cracking eggs against the edge of a bowl - apparently that's not a no-no to everyone. )
What you are experiencing are REAL eggs from happy chickens. No matter what way you choose to crack them, they will always taste better than store bought.
