Texas

[yinepu]

Quick question. Do any of you know why my chickens eggs would come out with that inner membrane darn near impossible to break? Her shells are nice and thick but that dang membrane just under her shell seems to be made of carbon fiber cloth. It just doesn't want to tear. I struggle with them because the shell breaks fine but then I have to fight to break that dang membrane, which makes all sorts of little shell pieces break off into the eggs.

cooked.. raw.. or hatching?

 

[StelleKitten]

cooked.. raw.. or hatching?

Raw. When I crack them open to cook them.

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
does your feed have a lot of soybeans in it? Or does it have additional choline added?
(choline can be synthesized by the hen... but sources are also wheat byproducts.. distiller's grains, yeast, fishmeal, liver and meat meals)
Since choline is needed for membrane development it makes sense to me that the diet would have an abundance of choline .. either from ingredients or as an additive


basically your hens are on a good diet.. so pat yourself on the back for having healthy birds.. the only downside is for using the eggs raw.. plus it may cause a big problem if your hatch rates suddenly drop off with chicks unable to pierce the membranes fully without assistance.

I could be wrong in this since I have never been able to find a decent answer for it.. but when you add it up.. it does make sense..

so if anyone else has a better source of info I would love to read through it!

 

[hotrodflash]

Raw. When I crack them open to cook them.

Try cracking them on a flat surface, if I use the edge of a bowl I get shells in the egg.

 

[StelleKitten]

does your feed have a lot of soybeans in it? Or does it have additional choline added?
(choline can be synthesized by the hen... but sources are also wheat byproducts.. distiller's grains, yeast, fishmeal, liver and meat meals)
Since choline is needed for membrane development it makes sense to me that the diet would have an abundance of choline .. either from ingredients or as an additive


basically your hens are on a good diet.. so pat yourself on the back for having healthy birds.. the only downside is for using the eggs raw.. plus it may cause a big problem if your hatch rates suddenly drop off with chicks unable to pierce the membranes fully without assistance.

I could be wrong in this since I have never been able to find a decent answer for it.. but when you add it up.. it does make sense..

so if anyone else has a better source of info I would love to read through it!

Well since I don't have hatch rates yet, I guess they can't go down. Lol. But it is something I will have to keep an eye on as it is her eggs that I am using in the test run of the incubator. As far as feed I am using the purina start n grow right now since I only have 1 and a half laying hens. They get extra calcium to sort of balance it out. I hope I am doing things right though. It just made more sense to feed everyone start n grow (except the turkeys) since there are 19 chicks and only 4 adults.

Try cracking them on a flat surface, if I use the edge of a bowl I get shells in the egg.

I use a flat surface all the time. I don't remember when I started doing it but I know my mother did it. I am not getting shells in the eggs from how I crack them, so much as when I do crack them I have a really tough membrane and I have to break that to get into the egg. Which btw is kind of good when I drop an egg, it doesn't really break.

 

[bnjrob]

Well since I don't have hatch rates yet, I guess they can't go down. Lol. But it is something I will have to keep an eye on as it is her eggs that I am using in the test run of the incubator. As far as feed I am using the purina start n grow right now since I only have 1 and a half laying hens. They get extra calcium to sort of balance it out. I hope I am doing things right though. It just made more sense to feed everyone start n grow (except the turkeys) since there are 19 chicks and only 4 adults.
I use a flat surface all the time. I don't remember when I started doing it but I know my mother did it. I am not getting shells in the eggs from how I crack them, so much as when I do crack them I have a really tough membrane and I have to break that to get into the egg. Which btw is kind of good when I drop an egg, it doesn't really break.

Ours are like that. We figure that the chicks that hatch out them will have really good vigor if they can get through that tough membrane. And so far, that has been the case with the ones we've hatched - strong and healthy little suckers.

 

[StelleKitten]

Ours are like that. We figure that the chicks that hatch out them will have really good vigor if they can get through that tough membrane. And so far, that has been the case with the ones we've hatched - strong and healthy little suckers.

That makes me feel better then.

Another thing I would like to note. Westboro baptist church has decided to protest some of the funerals in West. Right now some people have started the red wall against westboro. I think it is really neat that all those people are going to wear red t shirts and stand quietly between westboro and the funerals.

 

[Kilsharion]

Well since I don't have hatch rates yet, I guess they can't go down. Lol. But it is something I will have to keep an eye on as it is her eggs that I am using in the test run of the incubator. As far as feed I am using the purina start n grow right now since I only have 1 and a half laying hens. They get extra calcium to sort of balance it out. I hope I am doing things right though. It just made more sense to feed everyone start n grow (except the turkeys) since there are 19 chicks and only 4 adults.
I use a flat surface all the time. I don't remember when I started doing it but I know my mother did it. I am not getting shells in the eggs from how I crack them, so much as when I do crack them I have a really tough membrane and I have to break that to get into the egg. Which btw is kind of good when I drop an egg, it doesn't really break.

Once you crack the outter shell, you can pick off the area of the cracked shell and pierce the membrane with a knife. It then breaks the rest of the way without issue. I learned how to do that when i was about six in my g-granma's kitchen.

 

[Kilsharion]

That makes me feel better then.

Another thing I would like to note. Westboro baptist church has decided to protest some of the funerals in West. Right now some people have started the red wall against westboro. I think it is really neat that all those people are going to wear red t shirts and stand quietly between westboro and the funerals.

I think it's really disgusting that Westboro exists and is a glaring sign of many of the things wrong with humanity. If I could, I'd be up there in a heartbeat to help form the wall.

 

[Texasmja]

That makes me feel better then.

Another thing I would like to note. Westboro baptist church has decided to protest some of the funerals in West. Right now some people have started the red wall against westboro. I think it is really neat that all those people are going to wear red t shirts and stand quietly between westboro and the funerals.

They also threaten to protest the funeral of our friend Col. Roy Lin Tisdale. Hundreds of Aggies formed a human wall around Central Baptist Church, and a bunch of different biker groups showed up and lined the roads with American flags and formed a big circle around the funeral possession. They arrived to the cemetery before us and formed a huge circle around us to keep out any protesters.