Eggs for food vs eggs for chicks...sound off please

[aart]

I'm a survivor, I can say it. Same rules as the n word.

Still doesn't apply to other animals.

 

[magicstorm]

I am curious to hear from those who have chickens they intend to or have used for eggs AND chicks. Mine have just started laying. Like just yesterday. I have 7 gals and 3 cockerels. The boys are in a separate pen.

I would like to try raising some chicks of our own after the hens are all in a pattern of laying steadily. I would like advice and wisdom as to what age is best for mating (all are 4 months now), what season is best for it, should I allow one or both nice roos at a time to rejoin the flock of hens for a time, if so how long? How long after mating should I allow for possible fertilized eggs? Is there a best time to remove roos when I want to go back to egg production solely for eating?

Please give info, ask me questions, I would like to research the thoughts and ideas and options prior to deciding I want to try for chicks.

Thanx guys!

Rooster can stay with hens all the time. As long as you pull eggs daily they can be eaten even if fertile. Unless you have a hen that is broody and you leave them under her they will not develop. Or you pull them to incubate.

 

[magicstorm]

I am curious to hear from those who have chickens they intend to or have used for eggs AND chicks. Mine have just started laying. Like just yesterday. I have 7 gals and 3 cockerels. The boys are in a separate pen.

I would like to try raising some chicks of our own after the hens are all in a pattern of laying steadily. I would like advice and wisdom as to what age is best for mating (all are 4 months now), what season is best for it, should I allow one or both nice roos at a time to rejoin the flock of hens for a time, if so how long? How long after mating should I allow for possible fertilized eggs? Is there a best time to remove roos when I want to go back to egg production solely for eating?

Please give info, ask me questions, I would like to research the thoughts and ideas and options prior to deciding I want to try for chicks.

Thanx guys!

Also roos and hens mate all year. Hens decide when to go broody and sit on chicks.

 

[RinaRoo]

Please, 'rape' is human thing....do not toss that word around lightly.

No, not it's not. Ever watch any documentaries on Apes? In warring factions the males rape females and other males even. Dolphins do also, and they aren't the only animals who do.

 

[getaclue]

It's best to put the cockerel in with the pullets now. Cockerels are young, and inexperienced, so they tend to be rough, and clumsy at first. Pullets too are inexperienced, and may not be overly cooperative at first. These things usually work themselves out with time.

If you are planning to incubate, the best time to collect eggs for that purpose would be the first spring they're closest to a year old. Hens have to be broody to sit, and hatch eggs. Some are better at hatching them out, than others. Some are better mothers than others. You will have to watch, and go from there.

As to eating fertile eggs....years ago several health publications did articles that many of the cholesterol lowering drugs were effective due to an enzyme extracted from unrefrigerated, fertile chicken eggs. The enzyme is not present in unfertilized eggs, and is destroyed by the lower temperatures when eggs are refrigerated. The drug industry will tell you that eggs are too high in cholesterol, and unhealthy, while selling you a drug derived from an enzyme found in eggs, to lower your cholesterol. When you google it now, you will not find those articles, just what cholesterol lowering drugs are, and what they do. Little to no information on what they are actually made of. You can find out that most are statins, but again, no real information about the ingredients, and how they're made.

Consider this though. All eggs are designed to give sustenance to chicks, until they're hatched out. While fertilization increases these properties, and produces the chicks, there is nothing indicating that chicks need super high cholesterol levels to develop. Chicken meat is not overly high in cholesterol either. This lends credibility to the claims about fertile, unrefrigerated eggs helping with lowering cholesterol.

Development of a chick takes a lot of variables, and time. By collecting the eggs on a daily basis, even if you don't refrigerate them, they're not going to develop. As to eating rooster sperm, that's not exactly happening either. A change occurs in it, in the hen's body as she makes the fertilized eggs.

It sounds like your family, like far too many others, are too removed from their food sources.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Does your family know that milk happens as a result of cows being fertilized and giving birth? Or that fruits and vegetables happen as a result of fertilization? Or even that they themselves. .... ?

 

[chkncrazy]

My mom-in-law is adamantly refusing to eat at my house now and my sis-in-law is repulsed and "better not find out if I feed her a duck egg". I laugh it off but honestly...it angers me. Like, grow up already! I was so not raised closed-minded or picky. Guess who's getting lied to on Easter when they bite into that delish deviled BYC egg![/QUOTE

OMG me too... MY mother in law won't eat my chicken eggs, I don't even have a rooster, she said it's just weird cause they're so rich.... I want to say ate you honestly that stupid, she's a self proclaimed animal lover... I told her to look up "battery hens" on YouTube .... She should be grossed out eating store eggs... Now I only have Leghorns so the eggs are white, she said she'll try again... Ugh lol what's wrong with some people..
.... I guess we can't convert everyone lol

 

[BigBlueHen53]

True, we can't convert everyone, but . . Do we need to? Maybe we just need to respect people's personal choices. I don't eat pork or shrimp, and it got so I could not eat at my mother's house unless I made myself a salad because she was always finding ways to sneak these items into everything from the mashed potatoes to the cookies because she was determined to show me it was "all in my head" and that what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me - and then I would go home and be sick for three days. If people don't want your wonderful eggs, there's just more for you, right?

 

[getaclue]

BigBlue, I assume they do, however, they probably have not had to think about it in years. Milk no longer comes from udders. It comes from convenient plastic containers. Eggs don't come from chickens, or ever get dirty. They are perfectly clean, and come in egg cartons. Butter comes in a tub, or square carton with wrapped sticks. Steaks, roasts, hamburger, stew beef, come from foam trays, as do most other meats. It's been this way for years. Any thoughts on how it got there involves it being on a refrigerated truck, and stock clerks moving it from the trucks to the shelves. Like I said, far too many people are too far removed from their food sources today.

 

[getaclue]

I am not talking about sneaking food items that make someone sick. That's not good. I don't mind people having their personal preferences. I have several friends that won't eat pork. My cousin won't buy, or eat commercially farmed meat. She does eat fish. She's like a vegetarian when we go to a restaurant, unless they have fish. Funny thing is, she will eat the meats I process. She claims that my chickens have it made in the shade as long as they're alive, and they're healthy. She knows I process humanely, and that anything I use during processing is clean, and sanitary. She has no qualms with that.