getting my eggs to taste better

[lazy gardener]

i checked out your link for fermented feed. thanks for that. so its just mix my current feed 1 to 1 with water and stir for 3-4 days... then feed to the ladies. im assuming its like oatmeal consistency? how long does it stay?

You simply mix the feed with water (I use warm water, much as you would do when mixing the yeast and a bit of flour with warm water to jump start the yeast. Let it sit till it starts bubbling or till it starts to puff up (depending on how moist it is.) Then you can feed it out. I ferment in 2 buckets. (3 gal buckets) for my flock of 16 birds. One bucket lasts about 2 days, then the other one is ready to go. I hold back a bit of ferment in each bucket to inoculate the culture for the next batch.

thanks for the insight, im gonna try the fermented feed. we give them most of our vegetable scraps etc too.

Fermenting feed is not going to make a big difference opposed to true free range. It's the diversity of grasses and bugs, grubs that makes free range so great. Fresh eggs, as fresh as we back yarders get them are much better than store bought even if your mainly on a feed. Which is good mind you. Too many treats is unproductive. Table scraps and soilder fly colonies are ways to diversify what their intake is in a healthier way than scratch. What are you changing flavor wise with fermenting? Cider. OK....that will change flavor but the benefit of fermenting feed is not OMG the flavor is so much better. It's not asian food where if you don't know what to do just add nutmeg and call it good. Not knocking fermenting but my lord, does it cure cancer too?

Look into a sustainable way to give your birds insects. Soilder fly colonies and even growing out earth worms is going to do wonders not only for diversity of feed and flavor but a huge boost in protein. In the summer if you garden then all your culls go to them rather than compost. Stuff like that will get you closer to that true free range flavor your craving.

EHJ, I'm glad you are such an expert regarding fermented feed. It sounds like you ARE knocking fermented feed. Until you have done a month long trial of fermented feed with your flock, I don't believe you are in any position to pass judgement on the flavor of eggs from hens that get fermented feed in comparison to birds on dry feed, or on any of the other benefits to the flock. I have egg customers who go into withdrawal when I can't supply them with eggs from my hens. The difference in egg flavor is that noticeable. One lady can buy farm fresh eggs very near her home. She drives by that place every day, and can pick them up from a road side cooler. But, she will not buy there unless she absolutely can't get eggs from me. An other customer just returned from a 3 week vacation. She said she had to resort to buying eggs from Walmart, and simply couldn't eat them because they were so bad. Again, she has been spoiled by eggs from FF fed birds. Both she and her dtr will wait to get my FF eggs, and comment that they are far superior than the organic, free range, and other high end eggs sold at the health food store. BSFL would be a great addition to my flock's diet, but us northern folks can't grow them, because they won't survive a hard freeze.

Winter in the northeast would be tricky. If you have access to good alfalfa hay you can use that in their pens. It would give them something green to pick at. In warmer weather you could plant stuff around their pen that they can nibble through the wire.

My birds sample everything that grows into their area. Usually this helps the color and flavor of the eggs. But not always. I had one group of hens who figured out how to get into my garden. They decimated the purple kale. This purple kale was a new crop for me, and I had already decided I didn't like it (cardboard texture, odd taste). But the hens liked it. I thought that was a good thing until they started producing eggs with purple-tinged yolks. And those purple eggs tasted vile. Just like that variety of kale. On the other hand, bok choy grows fast and my hens really like it. And it has never made the eggs taste weird.

I keep sprouts going from hard freeze/snow to thaw/bare ground, which for me is Nov - April.

 

[Beekissed]

hi,
we have 6 hens, 3 buff orpingtons and 3 silver laced wyandottes. our eggs look great, yolks sit up high and taste good but not great like some that we have gotten from friends. any idea why our eggs dont taste better? they are not free range but have a large screened in run. we feed them natures best organic feed and cracked corn as a treat. i also sprout black oil sunflower seeds and give it to them as a treat. its also winter and we are in the north east if that makes a difference.
thanks
the marinos

You can something as simple as putting apple cider vinegar in their water daily or you can go with fermented feed, which would be my choice...it has a whole list of benefits beyond just clarifying the taste of the eggs. You can build grow frames for your run where you can plant greens for them to forage upon for most of the year. In this pic is just shows grass growing, but you could go with a varied planting of items with more of a nutritional punch...white dutch clover, field peas, oats, wheat, kale, beets, etc. You can even change it with the season and go with more cold hardy crops for winter such as winter wheat and the kale.

Fermenting feed is not going to make a big difference opposed to true free range. It's the diversity of grasses and bugs, grubs that makes free range so great. Fresh eggs, as fresh as we back yarders get them are much better than store bought even if your mainly on a feed. Which is good mind you. Too many treats is unproductive. Table scraps and soilder fly colonies are ways to diversify what their intake is in a healthier way than scratch. What are you changing flavor wise with fermenting? Cider. OK....that will change flavor but the benefit of fermenting feed is not OMG the flavor is so much better. It's not asian food where if you don't know what to do just add nutmeg and call it good. Not knocking fermenting but my lord, does it cure cancer too?

Look into a sustainable way to give your birds insects. Soilder fly colonies and even growing out earth worms is going to do wonders not only for diversity of feed and flavor but a huge boost in protein. In the summer if you garden then all your culls go to them rather than compost. Stuff like that will get you closer to that true free range flavor your craving.

Well...from someone who has free ranged for a very long time, I can tell you that my egg customers didn't exclaim over the flavor of my eggs until I started using ACV in the water full time. Since the FF has the byproduct of acetic acid, it provides much the same flavor profile, which is a clarity of flavor, a lessening of the eggy sulfur smell and flavor, a whitening and clarity of the albumen as well. I no longer have to use the ACV to get that good flavor now.

So, yes, my customers did declare the flavor of my eggs was so much better, though they didn't blaspheme to do so.

As for fermented foods curing cancer, there has been strong studies that indicate they could very well help prevent cancer~and in some cases cure it. My aunt had GI cancer that was inoperable, was sent home to die. She couldn't tolerate much food at all but she could drink buttermilk. When she came back to the docs they were amazed that she was still alive and called her buttermilk diet the Miracle Buttermilk Cure, said her cancer hadn't advanced further than it had been many months previously. They had pretty much sent her home to die, so was amazed at her current health status. She did finally die, but the fermented food she was eating definitely extended her life for awhile. Sure wish she had been drinking that all her life instead of just after she had gotten cancer so badly...could have made a difference.

These articles may be of some interest to you...

http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/dr-kuhl-lactic-acid-treatment.html

http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/sauerkraut-anti-cancer-fermented-food-that-restores-gut-flora/

http://beatcancer.org/blog-posts/fermented-foods-and-cancer/

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/02/13/fermented-foods-anti-cancer-diet.aspx

http://www.rethinkingcancer.org/resources/articles/a-daily-dose-of-fermented-food.php

 

[Molpet]

I use fermented feed also.. my cousin, neighbor and friends asked why my eggs taste better than the farm eggs they were getting.. they all bought at different farms.. I use milled organic feed that I ferment... they get scraps and when it's cold they get BOSS and meal worms