I've learned a lot about chickens the past few days.
Strange intro..I know. But I have this fascination now with finding out more about them. The other night I was at a friends house, and I was sitting in her hot tub with her and her two sisters. Somehow the topic came up that her parents had chickens. As in ...egg-laying chickens. Now, last spring we went to my D's aunt and uncles house in South Dakota and they had chickens. I visited the chicken coop, my nephew caused a ruckus and I swear - a chicken dive bombed my head. I know..they don't fly...but I think they can "float" or "hover" a little. Or maybe it just freaked and jumped down from a perch. I don't remember..It's all a little fuzzy. In any case, I asked questions about chickens then. And I felt like the Ultimate Stoopid City Girl in doing so.
So this past Sunday, chickens come up again. Why the strange fascination with chickens? I have no freaking idea. Maybe it's just something I know absolutely nothing about. Maybe because I've always thought the word "chicken" was kind of funny. Maybe it's because Little A pronounces is "Shicken" but the SH part of it is kind of sloppy sounding..ya know...she kinda sounds drunk when she says it.
Here's what I learned:
- chickens lay eggs every day for about 2 years before their egg-laying ability wears off.
- one rooster can be enough man for many, many chickens.
- when you see two yolks in your egg, those would have been twin chickens. (and yes..they do both fit in the egg as chickens - which was weird for me to understand)
- If you see a red spot in your egg, that means the egg was fertilized (ewwwww!)
- all chickens lay brown eggs (or shades of brown). They are bleached before being sold in supermarkets.
- eggs sold in stores are about 4-5 months old. And the life of an egg is about 6 months. So eat up.
- 25 chickens can produce up to 36 eggs a day.
- chickens "poop" their eggs out. There is no other ....erm...hole.
- Yes...roosters do cock-a-doodle do...and they'll do it BEFORE the sun rises (I experienced this once - 3AM is not sunrise time, trust me. The rooster thought it was).
- The eggs need to be put in an incubator right away in order to actually grow into a chick.
Fun facts to know and tell, right? What I STILL don't get, though....is how the rooster comes into play. Yes... I understand that it takes a boy and a girl to make a baby chicken - but I don't get if the rooster is just constantly a gigolo all day long with his harem (and thus - eggs are layed) or if the chickens lay eggs anyway and then the rooster comes along and does something to them. I sound incredibly blonde but the conversation never really made that clear. I'm guessing he's a machine and lives the life that many males just WISH they could lead. But the red spot in the egg thing - meaning it's fertilized. So the normal eggs without a red spot = not fertilized???
I don't get it.
Chickens.
ON this momentous Inauguration Day, I'm talking about chickens.
It's better than nothing, right?
(don't answer that)
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6 hours ago
7 meandering thoughts:
I love chickens. My grandparents used to own a chicken farm. Except I didnt like the bit when they cut off their heads. They were interesting facts. As for Obama its great thats for sure but every other blogger seems to have it covered so thank goodness for you and your chickens!!! I learnt a lot!.
I love your chicken post and must make a few comments.
1. I had no idea eggs were bleached. I used to buy "brown cage free eggs" & thought I was pretty earthy & stuff, but those eggs often had a mysterious "thing" in the yolk that grossed me out. Which brings me to point...
2. The red dot. The brown eggs almost always had a dot - not really red, but kinda brownish-orange. Fertilized perhaps? Ewww..too earthy.
3. I always assumed chickens had a different egg hole (sorry). How can poop & eggs come from the same place? I really don't get that.
4. I also don't get the whole fertilization part & how that works. You'd think we would have learned more about chickens in elementary school or on Sesame Street or something!
I think I just might go do some research! :)
@ Lilly - thanks for making my Chicken blog feel better. I probably SHOULD have blogged on Obama - but hey, I'm an Aquarian. I'm a weird one.
@ Deb - it's amazing how much you want to research chickens now, isn't it? I was the same way. Whouda thunk. And THANK you for thinking the eggs would come out of a different hole. I thought I was just really, really dumb. I don't get that either. Apparenlty the eggs are NOT pretty when they come out. makes sense, since they traveled through the poop shoot. (Ugh! I'm grossing myself out now. And I love eggs..or...I used to)
Oh. @Lilly - apparently egg laying chicken are NOT the ones we eat. I mean..they're the same...but their job is to lay eggs, not feed us. So they don't get their heads chopped off.
Okay...I have chickens and we eat their eggs. I need to say that I knew almost NOTHING about chickens when we first started rasing them. We have all hens, no roosters. Sometimes, they STILL have that red dot in the eggs. And there's no way in the Blue Moon of Egypt that a rooster got in with them. The nice girl at the feed store (who I think is still in high school!) told me that, when they are going into a moult, sometimes an egg can form around a little piece of tissue as it is being shed from the lining of their insides. Sometimes, an egg can be full of blood, but it just means that they are moulting. (We do not eat those!) I'm still learning, too. I know that they are happier when they get to roam around the property and pick at the bugs in the grass. I also know we have fewer bugs getting into the house when they do this, but the chicken poop all over the sidewalks is a pain in the rear!
And they scream like a woman in labor when they are laying an egg. I imagine that, if you believe in reincarnation, bad mommies must come back as hens in their next lives! That seems like some kind of hell to me....
there are far too many chickens in my neck o the woods...
Actually, Leann is right, the spot has nothing to do with the egg being fertilized, it's just a tiny spot of blood, usually.
Also, eggs do not need to be incubated right away. If a hen is laying eggs that she is going to hatch, she lays them over several days to a week. They are just fine not being kept warm for several days. Once she is satisfied with the quantity, she starts sitting on them. About three weeks later, they hatch. This is why they hatch at the same time rather than a day apart - as they were likely laid.
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