While some people may say there’s no difference between farm fresh eggs and store bought, there are an awful lot of people who will disagree. My egg customers all tell me they can taste the difference. If they couldn’t, I doubt they would go out of their way to pick them up.

 

Mother Earth News, February/March 2009 issue, found there are nutritional differences as well.

Farm fresh eggs have:

1/3 less cholesterol

1/4 less saturated fat

2/3 more Vitamin A

Two times more omega 3 fatty acids

Three times more Vitamin E

Seven time more beta carotene

3 to 6 times more Vitamin D

Now that’s something to crow about!

 

Taken from USDA nutrient database, release 15 (August 2002)

Duck eggs tend to be more nutritious than chicken eggs.

Protein: Duck 12.81g    Chicken 12.49 g

Calcium: Duck 64 mg      Chicken 49 mg

Iron: Duck 3.85 mg      Chicken 1.44 mg

Magnesium: Duck  17 mg      Chicken 10 mg

Phosphorus: Duck 220 mg    Chicken 178 mg

Potassium: Duck 222 mg    Chicken 121 mg

Copper: Duck .063 mg      Chicken .014 mg

Selenium: Duck 36.4 mg      Chicken 30.8 mg

Thiamin: Duck .0156 mg     Chicken .062 mg

Riboflavin: Duck .404 mg      Chicken .508 mg

Niacin: Duck .200 mg        Chicken .073 mg

Pantothenic Acid: Duck 1.862 mg      Chicken  1.255 mg

Vitmain B6: Duck .25 mg      Chicken .139 mg

Folate: Duck 80 mcg       Chicken  47 mcg

Vitamin B12: Duck  5.4 mcg     Chicken 1.0 mcg

Vitamin A: Duck 1328 IU       Chicken 635 IU

Retinol: Duck 399 mcg     Chicken 191 mcg

For more thorough information, look at www.duckeggs.com

 

I briefly looked into NPIP certification for my birds. However, it is costly and once certified virtually no one can go look at the birds except you. Since the neighbor’s grandkids are too cute to tell them they can’t go gather the eggs, we opted not to pursue the NPIP certification. Also, my egg customers like to be able to see the birds forage, rather than being penned up all the time. And we do extend an invitation to special needs kids who would like to experience gathering eggs first hand.

Egg eating bird: Couple of things to consider: either the bird is hungry or bored and that is why they have started eating eggs. Once they get started, it can be hard to get them to stop. Consider their feed – are they getting enough nutrition, protein and calcium in their diet? Consider their daily activity – are they allowed outside to free range? Or are they cooped up constantly?  A couple of things you can do once egg eating has started: Put a wooden egg in each nesting box. These obviously don’t crack, so gets kind of discouraging. Gather eggs more frequently, at least three times a day, until the egg eating ceases. Also, hollow out an egg, put scotch tap over one end, fill the egg with a mixture of mustard and cayenne pepper, then tape up the other end. Put this out in the nest and be prepared to clean up a mess and find out the perpetrator 🙂

 

Duck egg yolk

 

Chicken egg yolk

 

 

Turkey egg yolk

 

 

 

Eggs from healthy chickens will have a brightly colored yolk, visible choriza (the opaque white part), two distinct parts to the white and sit up taller than eggs from battery raised chickens.

 

A note on the two parts to the white: one part will be more viscous and ball-shaped and cling right to the yolk. The other part will be more runny. As the egg gets older, the two parts will blend together and it will just seem like there is a runny white.

 

When you boil eggs, the eggshells will peel more easily if the egg is at least two weeks old. Usually after the two parts of the white have melded together, the shells peel more easily. If you boil fresh eggs, the shells tend to stick to the white and you pick off pieces of white with your shell. But to lessen the stickiness, you can boil the eggs and then once they are done cooking, immediately place them in ice water. This helps ‘shock’ the inner membrane so the shell doesn’t stick quite as badly.

For the budding physicist, or just the curious, here is the correct formula for boiling eggs 🙂 Taken from “The Science of Cooking,” Peter Barnham.

 

Hens raised with the roosters will often have a red spot on the yolk. It’s fine to eat, but may not appeal to everyone. Duck hens raised with the drakes will sometimes have a black spot on their yolks. Both the red spot and the black spot indicate that the egg had been fertilized. Some people like it, some people don’t. For myself, I don’t mind the red spot on the chicken eggs, but I tend to pick out the black spot on the duck eggs. It just looks too weird or something 🙂

 

Quail egg, first year duck egg, chicken egg, turkey egg, goose egg.

 

 

Often, a hen’s first egg or two will be considerably smaller.

A couple of ‘fart’ eggs next to a regular sized egg. ‘Fart’ eggs usually don’t contain the yolk. The chicken’s system is just kind of working things out to get the whole egg laying thing in sync 🙂

 

 

Game hen egg, first year duck egg, second year duck egg, Maran egg, Faverolle egg.

 

 

 

First year duck egg, Second year duck egg.

 

 

Cool way to separate yolk from white:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly who was the first person to look at an egg and say, “Hmm…that came out of a chicken’s butt. I think I’ll eat it.”