Topic of the Week - Chicken Myths, True or False?

[BigBlueHen53]

This thread is about chooks but I’ll add some things about geese too.

Myth 1: lobe shape is determined by gender. One long single lobe means gander, two Pompoms indicate female. Wrong!
Males and females get both or a mix of the two. Certain breeds have even been bred to typically have one type regardless of sex.

Myth 2: ganders can’t get along. Wrong!
Who gets along and who doesn’t depends on personality, not sex. Boys and girls don’t always get along with certain individuals of the opposite or the same sex. I have a number of ganders that are perfectly bonded and don’t fight, I have others that tolerate each other, others that can’t be out together without war breaking out, males and females.
Relationships can sometimes change too. Two of my ganders who once despised each other are now bonded and will cry if you try to seperate them.
Two of my girls that once terrorized each other are now the best of friends.

So ... Just like people.

 

[Happy hen lover]

I thought this was crazy until my husband showed me

Oh I loved this fellar! Good video and I would have guessed it to be a myth

 

[Goosebaby]

I thought of another one. I don’t know when or how it originated, so far I’ve really only seen it the few times I’ve had enough courage to poke my head back onto Facebook.

Red tomatoes are toxic to chickens, ducks, geese, anything with feathers.
Red tomatoes are so toxic they’ll kill you’re birds outright.
Red tomatoes are the product of hell itself, they’ll kill your flock on sight.
Red tomatoes are evil.
Lol

My Pekin Henry ate tomatoes on average 3 or 4 times a week throughout her life of 14 years. Red tomatoes are perfectly fine.

I asked my normal vet about it once, wondering if there’s anything behind the rumor, she said it was ridiculous, there’s nothing wrong with them. You probably shouldn’t feed them any part of the plant though.

 

[Solanacae]

Oh, yeah, colored eggs taste different is a good one.
Also, blue eggs have more vitamins and less cholesterol. (As popularized by Martha Stewart in the 90's.)
The reality is a bit more complicated. Chicken egg taste and nutrition depends on a variety of factors like diet, environment, etc. A more active environment and healthier feeds results in more nutritionally dense eggs and less cholesterol.

Typically grocery stores sell lots of white eggs. It's been changing in recent years but historically groceries almost exclusively stocked white eggs. Therefore white became associated with commercial egg raising and other colors became associated with the healthier, tastier farm grown eggs, ESPECIALLY blue/green.

Blue eggs and green eggs are very rarely raised commercially so if you are used to buying eggs from a store and then you eat a blue egg there's a good chance it WILL taste different/be nutritionally different than any eggs you're used to getting. So it's not entirely unreasonable to think people associate those changes with the dramatic shell color change.

But the reality is that it's all about the husbandry (mostly the diet), and nothing to do with the shell color.

My parents love it when I bring them fresh eggs because they taste so much better and they like the pretty colors. They bought a carton of blue and brown eggs “laid by heritage breeds” with “golden yolks” from “free ranging hens” the grocery store hoping for something comparable. The yolks were an unnatural shade of bright orange, like a traffic cone! They tasted weird too, apparently. Never bought those again. I’m not sure what those birds were being fed, but clearly the company had figured out all of the phrases that make people THINK they’re getting a high quality egg from happy, healthy chickens.

 

[Ascholten]

Unfortunately you will find this often. Companies know the buzz words to spew to get the clueless to buy their stuff. Ohh it's ORGANIC !! I'll pay 3 dollars more a carton !!
What's even worse is many of these people you can't talk to, they know everything, just ask them! Try to have a convo and you get scorned because YOU don't want to save 'Mother Earth' and are an evil capitalist wanting the filthy rich to get richer. Whatever Nancy.

Aaron

 

[Liz Birdlover]

My parents love it when I bring them fresh eggs because they taste so much better and they like the pretty colors. They bought a carton of blue and brown eggs “laid by heritage breeds” with “golden yolks” from “free ranging hens” the grocery store hoping for something comparable. The yolks were an unnatural shade of bright orange, like a traffic cone! They tasted weird too, apparently. Never bought those again. I’m not sure what those birds were being fed, but clearly the company had figured out all of the phrases that make people THINK they’re getting a high quality egg from happy, healthy chickens.

I have 1 funny hen that likes to nibble my Marigolds, and it makes her egg yolks so yellow/orange. They are flavorful, too, but not in a bad way, they don't taste like Marigolds Lol.

 

[Ascholten]

Funny how chickweed was a big pest up north, kind of grows down in the south here and the chickens LOVE it, so instead of spraying it I just yank it and give it to them or pick one of them up and drop them in the middle of it. Marigold, I need to try that see how it works. I wonder what else can color eggs, and what other foods flavor them potentially.

Aaron

 

[Happy hen lover]

My parents love it when I bring them fresh eggs because they taste so much better and they like the pretty colors. They bought a carton of blue and brown eggs “laid by heritage breeds” with “golden yolks” from “free ranging hens” the grocery store hoping for something comparable. The yolks were an unnatural shade of bright orange, like a traffic cone! They tasted weird too, apparently. Never bought those again. I’m not sure what those birds were being fed, but clearly the company had figured out all of the phrases that make people THINK they’re getting a high quality egg from happy, healthy chickens.

This remind me about when I had hound pulley lay baby little eggs for awhile. My SIL said I should sell them as "lite eggs" or " low calorie low cholesterol eggs" ! They rattled around my egg cartons thought of putting in easter grass! Lol

 

[bgmathteach]

One myth I have heard repeatedly (I'm in New England) is" Brown eggs are more nutritious than white eggs."

Obviously, this generality isn't true. I think it was started to get people to buy 'local' not 'factory farmed' eggs. That said, pastured poultry eggs have been shown to be more nutritious than factory farmed eggs, and have a better omega 3 to 6 ratio...but of course, that has to do with feed/nutrient/fiber intake, not the color of the egg shell.

 

[bgmathteach]

Interesting, now you mention it, a friend of mine a few years ago told me he had an incubator hatch fail completely (more than 30 eggs set) when he had a thunderstorm pass during incubation. He said the eggs were partially black inside when he opened them No power outages, or fluctuations during the storm. The incubator was in his secure barn at the time. I could not find an explanation for that at the time.

Wonder if it could be about the sound waves 'shaking' the embryo? They are most fragile at the early stages of incubation. And around us, some of the thunder booms, after close or strong lightening, I have felt!

Anyone have any real knowledge about this?