care if you eat fertile eggs?

[chooniecat]

well-a post shortly before this gave me some info I hadn't had BUT my ? is if selling/giving eggs should I be concerned with them being fertile? it doesn't bother me but I am tougher than most, it seems, and I don't want to ask every person I sell/give eggs to if they care if they're fertile. and YES I believe you ARE eating a chicken if it's fertile(its not a K9 or camel so....) but once again-that doesn't bother me and it never occurred to me that when I was handing out eggs(when I had roos) that they were fertile. wanna get it correct. opinions?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know how you are advertising the eggs? Fresh eggs, farm fresh eggs, organic eggs, whatever. I'm sure you let people know they are different to the eggs they buy at the grocery. Fertile and nonfertile eggs are no different in taste, texture, or nutritional content. I think it would be wrong to attribute any special powers to fertile or nonfertile eggs. Until you crack them and look for the bull's eye, you don't know if they are fertile or not. At most, you could say they might be fertile or are probably fertile.

If you personally think you should tell them, go ahead. You know your customers much better than I do. To thine own self be true. I don't tell my customers but most have enough of a farm background that they know the eggs might be fertile and don't worry about it.

You are quite welcome to your own opinion and I don't want to start an argument over that, but you asked for opinions. I personally do not think eating a fertile egg is the same as eating a chicken any more than I think I'm eating a tomato plant if I swallow a tomato seed. It takes incubation or germination to change one into the other. While it would bother me to eat a partially developed, partly incubated egg, I raise chickens for eggs, breeding, and meat. If it hatches, I'll probably eat it at some point anyway. I don't see anything morally wrong with that.

 

[chooniecat]

I just mean that the only potential for the cells involved are for making a chicken, its not developed of course, but.....and that comes from my human issues so.... I do NOT currently advertise and don't plan to. the chickens are for my joy and am just looking into possibilities. everyone always says my eggs taste so much better than store bought but I personally can NOT tell. whatever. I advertise verbally to aquaintences because I have happy chickens and am proud of them but then you get people that wonder how you can eat them (excuse me-YOU buy store bought chicken person) and HAVE had people say "ewww" to thought of a fertile egg(?) not a good judge of people so wanna know what I am looking at. I will probably not volunteer any info unless asked.

 

[Stonerowfarm]

Until I had chickens I never thought about the eggs in the market, I just blithely bought my dozen every week or so. It just never connected with my dimwitted head that their animals were only in it for what they could quickly produce. If anyone you encounter gets the wooglies over a fertilized egg, you could always educate them to what goes on in commerical egg operations. Personally I would rather eat a fertilized egg from a happy chicken who wanders around in the sunlight, pecking at bugs than to eat an egg from a hen kept in a cramped cage her whole, short little life. Just my opinion.

 

[chooniecat]

oooooo-stonerowfarm thank you for the opinion. I do agree and do try to express that to people but have been accussed of being too blunt(my mother?) but I feel its necessary cause it changed MY opinion on store bought eggs so....have 8 more potential layers(6 for sure, 2?) so will either learn to convince people of importance or probably offend a lot. gotta learn to be tactful! have 1 up and coming roo,7 wk. old cockerel. if the 2 unsexed delawares I bought are cockerels they will be judged for temperment and then possibly stay.

 

[hensonly]

Quote:
If I read your post correctly, you don't have any male chickens old enough to be fertilizing eggs at this moment.

For the future, if you have only one roo with all those hens, what are the chances of any given egg being fertile? If I understand roo fertility accurately, pretty slim! If your 2 newest turn out to be roos, then probably a pretty good chance of fertile eggs.

I know people who are grossed out at the thought of eating a possibly fertile egg. But if the egg is laid in the morning, and collected at noon or in the evening, it may well be non-viable at that point anyway. And once they've been washed and refrigerated, the chances of them turning into a viable chicken embryo are extremely small even if you put them in an incubator or under a broody. so from that standpoint, by the time the customer gets a dozen of your eggs, there is no way they are eating a possible baby chicken. And even with fertile eggs, just go to the Incubating and Hatching section and read a few posts about the percentage of supposedly fertile eggs that never hatch... plenty of them aren't viable under the best of conditions.

You could, I suppose, separate some hens from the main flock so the roos can't get to them...then you could sell the non fertile eggs to those who worry about it.

 

[LarryPQ]

I have a customer who would prefer to have unfertilized eggs. He buys them anyway, so it is not a religious issue. SO- because he is a nice guy, and I don't have a ton of customers, I pack him the "unhatchable" eggs. That is, the eggs from the hens that are too old, the pullets that are too young, or the random ladies whose eggs have never developed past 3 days in the incubator.

When I told him what I had done (as I have no plans to seperate my roo from part of the flock) he was really grateful. He was relieved that the "potential for life" was not there.

To be fair, if I tried to hatch 100 of those eggs, I might get a random success or two. But he was not terribly picky in the first place. I suppose if you are a meat eater the "potential for life" is still easier to eat than a slaughtered animal. Or maybe it is the idea of "baby animals" like veal. I dunno. I am just pondering out loud.

 

[JENx]

My mother and children are vegetarian and don't eat eggs that could be fertilized. Personally i don't have a problem but i think if you knew someone was veggie you should tell them, of course they still might not be worried, views will vary.

 

[chooniecat]

the concern was I have no experience with selling eggs(much anyhoo) and I guess if someone was really concerned about a fertile egg they would ask first. its just the small experience I have with some people around me being grossed out at fertile eggs(yet they eat commercially slaughtered meats?) And I will have the upcoming BA roo(7 weeks old now) with the 6 BA girls(also 7 wo) when I DEFINITELY want fertile eggs.(it will be just the 7 of them in their own pen) so he will be with at least 16 girls part of the year. and I KNEW they wouldn't form chicks because I pick them out several times a day. learning-thanks.

 

[PhilErvin]

I have six girls and a roo and am getting 5-6 eggs daily, not a lot when you consider my sixteen year is eating them like they are going out of style. What we do have to give away are considered delicacies to the folks we choose to share them with. Everyone knows of my roo and I don't mention to them that they are most likely eating fertile eggs. If anyone complains I can guarantee you they will NOT get another of my eggs. If folks are not absolutely delighted to get a dozen I will cut them from my list, I have a waiting list of friends, neighbors and co-workers who have an insatiable taste for my eggs.