I was hoping to get a rooster (i herad they will protect hens if free ranged) but i wanted to be able to eat eggs... please help me i sound like an idiot because its probably either a "defintly not" or "yes, if really want to do that you can"....
Yes, you can eat fertilized eggs. If you do not pick up eggs daily and leave fertilized eggs in the nest for several+ days, you can be sure the hen has been laying on it and at that point, it is your dissection to eat it. i personally would not eat a fertilized egg if has been in the coop for several days and a hen been laying on it.
it all down to discresion personally i wouldnt myself i read that during the egg comming down the tube before lay that 26 hour process the egg gets some form of incubation thats why if you crack open a fertelised egg you can see a white spot where 26 hours of incubation has occured although onced layed there is still 21 days to go
Yep! I eat one every day. So do my kids, husband, and my parents, just not every day like me. Fertilized are all we get around here.
most farm fresh eggs are fertilized because there is at least one rooster. there is nothing wrong with eating a fretilized egg, thats what has been consumed for years. its only since the big commercial egg producing operations have come into play that roosters have been eliminated from the scene.
There is no difference in taste or nutrition between the two. I eat fertile eggs all the time; I just make sure I gather eggs no less often than every three days. (I have a health condition which saps my energy and it's all I can do to make sure their feeders and waterers are kept full, some days. Sometimes I have no problem and will gather eggs several times a day - that's usually on the weekends. It's during the week when I work that I don't always gather eggs daily.) Embryos do not begin to form until eggs are incubated, either by a hen or in an incubator. Most hens do not go broody to incubate their eggs, so any left in the nests on cool days are perfectly fine for 2 to 3 days. Hot summer days just might start incubation, if it's at least 99 degrees several days in a row. Obviously, if a hen is brooding on a clutch for any length of time, I wouldn't want to eat those eggs if she's sat on them 24/7 for a few days already! But I will break THOSE eggs into a separate bowl, first, to make sure I haven't picked up a developing egg.
