New to eating home laid eggs

[ThatParrotLady]

So my mom and I are first time chicken keepers and after 8 months of nothing from our chicks we finally got eggs!

Only issue is we have a young rooster who is learning how to mount and is terrible at it but we give him props for trying. And getting barrel rolled off by the larger hens

Anyway I have the first 8 eggs they've laid over the last 3 days. So far it seems to be only our Buckeye and Silkie who are laying and while I have candled the eggs I have questions about what I am seeing.

There are no veins. But there is a faint circle at the base of some of the eggs which I cant tell is an airsac or an implantation circle.

Or should I care? We don't want any accidental babies in the winter but we also are pulling them every day and when we do none of them are being set on or tended.

Are the eggs with circles on the bottom that appear to be part of the shell ones we should throw out or is that just how the shell calcified? The circles are semi transparent and dime sized. And not present in all of the eggs. We wanna try them.

Just gun shy on whether or not we are eating a dead baby chicken vs an infertile egg.

 

[sylviethecochin]

In eight years, I have only ever cracked open one egg containing an embryo. It was the height of summer and the egg had been laid in the barn top (a very hot place) I very much doubt you have to worry.

And that transparent space is most likely your air cell. If you're worried, buy a cheap dozen eggs from the grocery store and compare candlings.

 

[JaeG]

Eggs won't develop until they have been incubated at the correct temperature for 24 hours. The only way you'd know if they were fertile or not is to crack them open and look for the spot (germinal disk) on the yolk. In a fertilised egg there is a ring around the little spot. Here's a picture showing the difference:

And either way they are perfectly safe to eat.

The circles you are seeing will be the air cell that grows as the egg loses water through the shell pores whether they are incubated or not/fertile or not.

They are quite safe to eat so enjoy your home grown eggs!

 

[getaclue]

Your cockerel will get better at his job. No, you are not eating a baby chick. Even if you collect them every other day, you are not eating a baby chick.

 

[Peeps61]

The eggs are safe to eat if you collect them at least every other day. I collect mine every day and I've never had a problem. The eggs have to be incubated for at least 3 days for you to see anything that resembles an embryo.
I have two roosters who are very active with about 32 hens/pullets. All of them are old enough to lay, and a few of my hens have started to slow down due to molt and the shorter winter daylight hours. I have two Orphington's who lay once in a while. They are 4 1/2 years old.
I really LOVE my fresh, homegrown eggs!

 

[Mrs. K]

As stated above, you are fine, many people cannot tell a fertilized egg from an unfertilized egg without a bit of practice, and you can only tell if you open the egg.

Let me explain how it works in a natural situation. A hen can lay an egg every 25 hours or so. She will lay an egg in the nest, jump off the nest and leave. She could care less what happens to the egg, most of the year. Some breeds never care about the eggs, they never go broody.

Sometimes, for me in May to June is the most common time, a hen will start laying an egg in a hidden nest. A single egg is added each day. When the clutch of eggs looks right to her, a hormone will flip and she will begin to set. Which means her whole demeanor changes, she sits flatter on top of the eggs. She stays on the nest all day and all night, only occasionally getting off the nest to meet her daily needs.

While the eggs are laying there, before she begins to set, the eggs are inactive. These are not like a mammal egg, in which, once it is fertilized, the egg begins to grow and multiply, even before it is embedded on the uterus. A fertilized chicken egg is in limbo, until it is heated by either an incubator or a broody hen.

If you think about it, even though some of the eggs can be a week or more older than the last laid egg, they all begin to develop 24 hours after the hen begins to set. This allows them all to hatch at the same time, within hours. This allows the mother bird to take care of the new chicks, instead of waiting a week for the last ones to hatch. It is kind of a nifty solution.

So you are safe to eat the eggs. No chicks are present. Welcome to this wonderful hobby.

Mrs K

 

[lazy gardener]

Do a thread search for "candling eggs" and you will find all sorts of good photos to show you what you are seeing. An egg fresh out of the nest, if the shell is thin enough will show you the air cell at the wide end of the egg, and you may be able to visualize the yolk. You won't see anything else. It takes a trained eye to tell if the egg you crack into a frying pan is fertile or not, and they all taste exactly the same. YUMMY!!! You've waited a long time for those eggs. Enjoy them.

You are not likely to have a pullet go broody during the winter... though your silkie may have her own ideas on the subject. But, remember this: you are the flock keeper. Since you hold that title, you get to decide if you will allow a broody hen to set on eggs. If you are not in a position to have new chicks, don't allow the hen to set on eggs. How to break a broody hen (shift her hormones so she doesn't try to hatch eggs) is a topic for an other day. You can do a thread search for more info on that.