Amazing Eggs
EGGS --
Q - Parts of a chicken egg?
A- This diagram is furnished through the kindness of cas.bellarmine.edu they allow use of their diagrams for instruction purposes. 
Q - Chicken egg? Will the eggs that you buy in the super market be fertile? How do you tell if they are?
A- As a rule NO, the chicken eggs in the grocery store are not fertile. Most commercial egg producers keep only hens and usually they are kept in VERY small cages without even the room to turn around. This is the cheapest way to raise eggs.
Some health food stores DO carry fertilized eggs. They are marked very plainly on the box. People will pay a premium price for these eggs even though there is NO nutritional difference than a non-fertile egg. Although in order to be fertilized the hens are usually cage-free with a rooster. This does not mean they get to go outside, they just live in a huge barn area with about 1000 or more other hens.
I am guessing that your question however, is not fertile eggs, but viable eggs. A fertile egg means that there is a daddy that has fertilized the hen before she lays the eggs. Viable eggs are those eggs that can hatch.
Eggs from a store for food purposes are NOT VIABLE. They are chilled soon after collection and then washed etc... This process kills any embryo in the egg. Also I bet you did not know that the average egg in the grocery store is between 3 weeks and 1 month old. YUCK!! This is approximately how long it takes to go through the cleaning process, packaging and shipping to the store. Then they sometimes sit in the store cooler for quite a while BEFORE you get them home. THEN they sit in you fridge.
Viable hatching eggs are usually NOT washed. The egg has a natural protective mucus coating, called the bloom, which protects the egg from bacteria. Next the eggs are held at room temperature no lower than (60 degrees F) and rotated slowly each day. (Like a chicken would getting on the nest to lay a new egg the nest day). This keeps the embryo centered in the shell. Then a viable egg is usually held no longer than 7 days before incubating. The fresher the egg the better chance of its hatching.
If you are interested in purchasing eggs to hatch in an incubator check out www.eggbid.com. They sell viable hatching eggs from many different kinds of chickens.
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Q - Fertile chicken egg (or chick) -where do they sell them??
I’m recently interested in pet chickens-and yes, you could have chickens for pets.
A- Web auction site is Eggbid.com. I think they will ship almost anywhere.
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Q - Our chickens eat their own eggs. What makes a chicken eat their own eggs?
A - Sometimes it starts by accident. An egg drops against another egg and cracks open. Then the hen curious as they are tastes it and there you go.
It is possible that the eggs have too thin of a shell and are even easily broken by chickens stepping on them. If so they need oyster shell for a calcium supplement. Sometimes there is not enough straw in the nest box to cushion the eggs and they break as they are laid. Not every hen sits down to lay her eggs, some stand!
Once a hen starts eating eggs it is VERY hard to stop her. Some hens even wait while another hen is laying and then eat her eggs or peck at her vent until it is bleeding. The best solution is too cull the hen or keep her in a separate pen.
One thing that may help is lighting. The nest box should be in a darkened corner of the chicken house. Paint the inside of it with dark paint and perhaps even fix a little curtain halfway down the entrance. These things will make egg eating less likely.
Be sure to keep eggs collected at least twice a day. They can't eat the eggs if they are in your refrigerator!
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Q -What is causing my girl or guy not sure yet which one it is.....to peck and break the eggs?? (maybe to eat them) They have never done this before and I havent changed a thing I have feed them. Yesterday it happened to 3 eggs and already today to one... How do I stop it?
A -Sometimes not having enough calcium in the diet will cause weakened shells, shells that break in the nest when they are stepped on. Once broken a hen eats it - likes it and thus the habit is started. Especially during winter boredom. Usually finding the egg eater and either isolating her or culling her is the only way to solve the problem. Sometimes one hen will teach many others the bad habit.
Things that will help prevent this problem:
*Feeding oyster shell as a calcium supplement to keep shells strong.
*Feeding alfalfa hay. Feeding alfalfa chops combined with some whole corn or a little millet will help provide calcium, keep your egg shells stronger, help alleviate boredom, and keeps egg yolks nice and golden. You can also simply feed leafy alfalfa hay flakes in the coop in winter. Dress with corn or millet and the hens will have a blast!
*Keeping the nest area darkened. Will help with egg eating and vent picking as well.
*Feed a pumpkin half or whole apples or other hard fruit or veggies.
These give the hens something to pick at and play with ... instead of pecking on each other or eating eggs.
*Hanging a treat from the ceiling of the coop. This also makes a great boredom breaker. Try fruit, ball of old bread, or make a seed cake with peanut butter and seeds like you would to feed wild birds.
Sometimes understanding why a problem starts can help it to never get started.
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Q - How Long Does It Take For Chickens To Start Laying Eggs?
A- Chickens usually start laying eggs at approximately five to six months of age. Standard size chickens that are going to be for eggs should be taken off of chick starter and fed a commercial grower ration with around 15% protein as soon as they are completely feathered out. They should also have plenty of fresh greens and sunshine. Studies have shown that hens that are raised in this way grow slower and develop slower. This seems very backwards, however hens raised slowly in this way develop their internal laying structures better, and will actually lay considerably more eggs over their lifetimes, than hens raised on higher protein and grown faster. Provide them with free choice both oyster shell and granite grit when they reach 4 month old at a minimum
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Q - Where do eggs come from that we eat, are they fetuses of chickens or do they come from some other place?
A-The eggs that you buy from a store are NOT fetuses. They are simply eggs. An egg is the reproductive cell of the female bird (hen). An ostrich egg is the largest single cell in all of the world! A sperm is the reproductive cell of a male (rooster). Only when the egg is fertilized - by a rooster - is the egg able to hatch into another chicken. These eggs are called fertile. If they are fresh and have not been overly chilled or heated
and can be hatched they are called viable.
The vast majority of eggs at the store are simply eggs. There are no males kept on most egg farms, so the eggs are not fertilized and could never hatch. Plus after all the cleaning, cooling and shipping the eggs go through even the fertilized eggs that ARE sold (the boxes are marked) could never hatch either.
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Q - I have several different types of hens, some black rocks some isa's and some mixed. Just recently I have noticed that there is a lot of fluid in my eggs. The yolk and the white is as normal and when cracked onto a plate they sit well but around that is a lot of what looks like water. What could be causing this, can you suggest anything?
A-One possible cause for eggs to become watery like you describe is when the eggs are not fresh. If the hen is laying the eggs and they are sitting a day or more before being collected the egg white will become watery. One other remote possibility is that the eggs are starting to freeze before collection. After coming up with those answers I was stumped. So I did a little research and found a great link.
www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/lvstk2/ep127.pdf The Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension. These good folks have a wonderful document that is available in PDF format called "Factors Affecting Egg Quality"
The document begins as follows:"Many factors affect egg quality. Sometimes the cause is not a single factor but a combination of factors. A few of these problems can be prevented or reduced by good hen management. Producers should remember that genetics, feed quality and environment play a role in egg quality. The most reliable factor is age. A young pullet produces smaller eggs with strong egg shells and albumen that stands high. As the hen ages, the shells thin, and the albumen begins to weaken and run. Hens can be molted to induce another egg cycle, which will improve egg quality, or they will need to be replaced with young pullets. The following charts summarize factors that may affect egg quality and suggest corrective measures. As more emphasis is placed on egg quality, it is important that all possible defects be eliminated. When defects are found, consult the chart for possible causes and solutions."
So there in the opening statement was the possible answer to your question. "As the hen ages, the shells thin, and the albumen begins to weaken and run." So, according to this information your hens may simply be old.
I would highly recommend anyone interested in quality egg production download this PDF chart.
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Q - We have four hens almost 2.5 years old. This would be their third season laying. So what do you think? Will they start up again, or is two seasons about as long as they lay before productivity drops?
A-It actually depends on the bird.
Some really great layers will go three years or even a little more and still have good egg production. Most birds however drop production after the first year and drop even more after the second year. How valuable is that bird (maybe you need her bloodline for breeding purposes) and how willing you are to pay a lot of fee for a couple of eggs?
I too have a limited space and require top production from my birds. I usually replace my hens after the second year if they are good layers and after the first if they are slackers. I also try to get high quality laying hens in the first place and raise them right.
Did you know that studies have shown that a laying hen that is grown slowly with a lower protein, high fiber (read lots of greens) diet will actually lay more eggs in her life time than a hen that is grown quickly on high protein feeds? It seems that taking time to mature before puberty (the start of egg laying)allows the body to develop more and in addition to more eggs there seem to be less problems with prolapse and egg binding.
Hens that are raised with good feed, green grass, sunshine and exercise make far better laying hens. Go figure!