Fried to scrambled to dog

[4BeautifulBRATs]

so I feel like a dummie! First time hen mama here: so just for some details we have 2 Delawares, 2 Rhode Island Reds & 2 cCinnamon Queens! They are pets, egg producers, and yard chickens. They get high quality laying pellets, scratch, and tons of fresh and cooked veggies, plus bugs and whatever they eat out of the yard, They are fantastic in the yard for bug and weed control and of course fertilizer! We've lived here a year and haven't had grass, let's just say in the last 3 months the yard is filling in!

So... We got our first egg Friday October 21st this year (2011) The second egg came yesterday (Monday) so this morning I got excited to cook them for breakfast. Well I crack them open and to my surprise the yoke and whites are much thicker than even store bought cagefree/organic eggs and I noticed the yoke was much darker! I started to worry and decided to quickly turn my fried egg into scrambled eggs. Even more shocked, that's when I realized something wasn't right my eggs were orange and white (mostly orange) I figured maybe somthing wasn't right, maybe cause they're small and the first of her eggs?! So I let them cool and fed them to the dog. Still discombobulated Over my orange eggs I proceeded to reasearch the one thing I haven't come across in my hobby farm venture, the color of yard chicken eggs!

My sister has had chickens for years , which i have enjoyed and I have personally distinguished the difference between store bought and down home farm eggs. However her chickens are in a large hen house with a large enclosed "run" , they don't get out and about.

For the well seasoned chicken farmer

pardon my pun, your all probably fully aware I feel like an idiot! Here I learned happy, healthy, free roaming chickens who are only cooped at night produce happy healthy Eggs!

not that others arent , I've just never experienced the color or texture of 2 day old raw eggs with such thickness and dark coloring in a yolk.

As you can imagine, I feel ridiculous! I am very disappointed that I was ignorant to the matter.

So will the 6 hens all be dark or should I expect this to be changing through the seasons or with age?!

Thanks for the info and advice everyone!

 

[Carolyn]

As long as they have excess to plenty of greens and bugs you will have lovely deep orangy yellow yolks. They are so different from store eggs or even caged backyard chicken eggs. If you can't let them free range they need supplemental greens to keep the dark color. Even now my younger ones who love to free range have darker yolk than my wellies who were penned more earlier and aren't as avid about free ranging now.

Since you are new to true eggs, do you know how to boil them? It is a different ball game. Either check on here for a thread or I can tell you what works for me.

 

[vfem]

I hope now you know its a GOOD surprise (I'm sure your dog is LOVING you right now)!

My duck's eggs are sooooooooo dark and thick, I have what looks like orange puddles on planes when I make scrambled eggs. My husband will NEVER go back to store bought, he freked when I first made them, but once he got used to them.... totally agrees its a superior taste!

Just for reference, those 'cage free' or 'organic' or 'free range' store bought eggs are joke. They do the mimumal to earn the use of those 'terms'. They really mean nothing. The chickens are housed in a 'safe' facility' where they can walk around and can't leave. To use the freerange term, they add a doggy dog the only leave unlocked for short periods and never show the chickens how to get out because they don't want them to figure it out! Long as the offer 'access' to a nice lawn area... that's all they need to use that term. Organic, just means the food given to the chickens is organic... no hormones... ect. Those birds can still be caged!

I will pull over when I see a fresh eggs sign (when my girls aren't laying) but I will not resort grocery garbage eggs ever again!

My hens liberated me!!!!