Hen just started to lay -- feel funny eating the eggs.

[krissteff]

I'm new to chicken-keeping, and one of my hens just started to lay. When I cooked the first egg, I had all sorts of "feelings" when I was eating it: Where it came from, Who it came from, What they ate prior to producing the egg, etc. I even felt guilty!! This is ridiculous.

My grandparents had a farm and we would eat the farm eggs all the time. We drank the milk from the cows on the farm, we ate whatever my dad killed in the woods (squirrel, rabbit, deer, pheasant, quail....). It's my first time being the one raising the chickens, but certainly not my first walk with fresh, home-raised food.

Not sure why I'm feeling this aversion to eating the eggs. Maybe it's because they are MY chickens? Or that I raised them from babies? Or that I actually handle the worms and slugs I toss to them periodically?

I'm not going to stop eating the eggs and I know I'll get over it, but I just wondered if anyone else out there felt weird eating their first egg?

 

[kidcody]

Ever since I started hatching chicks I haven't been able to eat ANY eggs, it's a mental thing I know.

 

[chicmom]

I have a friend who's had eggs for two years now, and she feeds her whole family the eggs, but she has never eaten a single egg herself. She eats the store bought eggs.

I have no idea why she feels that way, but it's probably similar to what you're feeling. Chickens don't get attached to the eggs they lay, so don't worry..........Maybe after a while, you will lose that feeling!

What I'm saying is, you're not alone!

Take care,
Sharon

 

[Judy]

This comes up every so often. Many if not most had trouble at first. I love overeasy eggs, but it took be a few months to eat my own that way. Now of course a store bought egg cooked overeasy is, um, not so great. And I've had backyard eggs off and on several times in my life.

 

[ByeByeBlackBird]

And here im sitting here PINING for my first eggs from the girls! Im not sure ill feel quite this way about it, so much as relieved that im doing everything right! Fresh eggs are so absolutely delicious, i know that my birds have been hand raised and treated with love and given awesome treat foods every day! Ill know that my eggs are the very product of my hard work at raising such healthy happy hens ( and a few roo boys!

) Be proud of your success!

hatch a few, eat a few.

 

[Okie Amazon]

Hatch a few... eat a few....


X2

 

[Buugette]

It took me a while to be able to knowingly eat the eggs. I had to start off with scrambled... and my hubby mixed them with store bought eggs. I basically stayed out of the kitchen when he was cooking eggs so I didn't know which eggs they were. He would make me omletts, french toast, scrambled eggs... wasn't able to do dippy eggs for a long time.

Now I am good... I can eat them, cook them, bake with them, sell them, etc. No problem.

I don't have a roo... so I'm not sure if I could eat fertilized eggs... might have a problem there...

 

[whoacowboy]

Wow. It's as if I wrote this. You are not alone. At first I thought. "There is something in my fridge that came out of the behind of my pet." Just take the leap. One delicious egg and you will be wishing there was more! Go for it!

 

[CrazyCatNChickenLady]

I'm really not into eating my own eggs. Because THAT just came out of my PET!!!

I do like to bake with them because they make everything delicious and they're hidden! But cracking an egg in a pan.. Can't even do it. I agree with the hatching thing. I see the yolk as nutrience for the chick with the whites as 'padding'. And the blastula: could have been a chick if I treated it right!

I think it all started when I was little WAY before I ever had chickens.. My mom used to pick the chalaza out of all her eggs she cooked. When she told me this she also told the story of when she was a kid and she was eating an over-easy egg and the chalaza got stuck in her throat and she 'choked' on it... Needless to say I used to pick the chalaza off all my eggs!

ETA: I'm 2 years in and I still feed them to my man, give them away, or blow them out!!

 

[Wildflower_VA]

Mentally, try to change your thinking: If you grow garden fresh veggies, would you have the same problem with eating a large, red, juicy fresh tomato or a firm, green cucumber that you raised and watched grow? You raise veggies much the same way you raise your laying hens. You tend to them with love and care, feeding them both with nutritious substances (plants= fertilizer/compost; hens = quality feed) and you water both to make them healthy and make sure they thrive. The end result is the same: a tasty vegetable, which you know was raised properly and is more healthful than that which comes from a factory farm. An egg, freshly laid, which you know came from your own well-cared for hen, which is more nutritious and tasty than an egg from a chicken kept close quarters in a confinement house, lights on 24/7 to encourage non-stop laying until the hen is worn out. The tomato is a gift from your well-tended plant and the egg is a gift from your well-tended hen. Both should be appreciated and used because of the effort both the plant and hen put into producing your gift. My hens are so proud of their eggs, they sing the egg song loudly to announce to the whole world what they have just accomplished!

I grew up on a farm where we grew all our food. After many years, I am back where I can raise a huge garden and have my own chickens. I know what kind of life a chicken lives on a factory farm, and I have always had trouble eating store eggs. I had just bought 2 dozen store eggs when my pullets started to lay. Since that first tasty egg, I can't even think about eating those store-bought eggs. I know I will end up putting them in a compost pile.