Kendall and Rebecca discuss the production and handling of eggs with UNH Extension livestock Field Specialist Katrina Klobucher. They discuss the need for proper sanitation throughout the process, from ventilation to the baskets eggs are gathered in. They also discuss factors affecting shell color and size, and choosing a breed that best matches your goals. How do you like your eggs?
University of Florida Extension Fact Sheet on Egg Quality. The table starts on page 9: https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/IR/00/00/42/62/00001/PS02000.pdf
NH Dept of Agriculture, Markets and Food
Guidelines for Selling Eggs from: https://www.agriculture.nh.gov/publications-forms/documents/shell-egg-guidelines.pdf
Frequently Asked Questions – Eggs: https://www.agriculture.nh.gov/divisions/regulatory-services/faq-eggs.htm
UNH Extension Resources:
Producing Your Own Eggs: https://extension.unh.edu/sites/default/files/migrated_unmanaged_files/Resource000472_Rep494.pdf
5 Unique and Rafe Chicken Breeds to Consider for Your Backyard Flock: https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2024/04/5-unique-rare-chicken-breeds-consider-your-backyard-flock
What does a good quality egg look like? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unhextension/reel/C7E_1llsMAf/
Colorado State Extension – Cleaning Eggs: https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-safety-health/home-produced-chicken-eggs-9-377/
Women in Ag Newsletter signup - https://unhoutreach.tfaforms.net/217751?CID=701G0000001AiKCIA0
Kendall Kunelius – kendall.kunelius@unh.edu
Rebecca Dube – rebecca.dube@unh.edu
Transcript
Kendall Kunelius 0:09
Welcome to this episode of Shared Soil, a podcast dedicated to creating community, honoring challenges and encouraging personal and professional growth for all people in agriculture. My name is Kendall Kunelius. I'm a field specialist in agricultural business management,
Rebecca Dube 0:25
and I'm Rebecca Dube, providing administrative and technology support to the specialists of Extension. Kendall, I think today we're going to have a really "eggcellent" episode! Why don't you start us off with an egg joke to get us started?
Kendall Kunelius 0:43
Okay. So Rebecca, how did the egg get up the mountain?
Rebecca Dube 0:48
I don't know. How did it?
Kendall Kunelius 0:49
It scrambled up!
In light of that, Rebecca, I can't believe we haven't done a chicken episode until now, or a chicken and egg episode, I should say. We've talked about chickens in other episodes. We've talked about eggs and backyard chickens, but we haven't actually had an episode focused on how wonderful eggs are. So here it is. And being a poultry enthusiast myself, I love talking about eggs, egg production and general chicken husbandry. It's a topic I generally enjoy sharing, and so I'm excited that we have someone with us today that can actually help us follow the journey from nest box to icebox.
Rebecca Dube 1:30
Yes, in fact, Kendall, I have some of your eggs in my fridge right now, and they're all different colors and sizes, which is amazing. So I am excited to talk with Katrina Klobucher, UNH Extension Field Specialist in livestock. Katrina, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, some of the things you do with Extension, and your journey with eggs?
Katrina Klobucher 1:51
Yeah, of course. Hi everyone. I'm Katrina Klobucher, Field Specialist in livestock production here for UNH Extension. I work with all different types of livestock producers throughout the state, anything from bison, ostrich to your everyday chicken that you see laying eggs. A little background about myself: I did my undergrad degree at UMass Amherst in animal management, so I got a lot of livestock experience there, and then went to UNH for my masters in agricultural science. And I've had chickens since I was very young. I can remember my mom bringing them into school for show and tell when I was in first grade. So farming has always been with me in some way.
Rebecca Dube 2:34
Good to learn about those eggs early.
Kendall Kunelius 2:36
So to go back to the intro: Really today, I'd love to take the opportunity to kind of pick your brain, Katrina, to help us understand, was it the chicken or the egg that came first? But really, we're gonna be talking about the egg production piece. So how is an egg actually formed? What part of the chicken forms the egg? How it's laid, husbandry practices. When we collect eggs, safe handling for when we bring them inside. And I think, importantly, we're also going to give a lot of really pointed resources along the way. So we are going to touch a little bit about the point of, what if I want to sell my eggs? How do I find the information that tells me how I could do that? And at the end, I have a surprise question for both of you. So that's what our episode is shaping up to be. But let's start from the very beginning. So out in my coop right now, considering it's the morning, I am sure that I have a bunch of hens who are lining up to get into the nest box. So what has happened in the previous 26 hours, Katrina, that would make them instinctively go to somewhere where they could safely lay their egg.
Katrina Klobucher 3:43
Yeah. So like Kendall said, egg production, or egg formation, takes about 24 to 26 hours, with much of the work happening overnight. But before it begins, we need a mature egg yolk, which usually takes about 10 days to develop. And they're constantly developing within the chicken. So once that ten-day period is up, an egg yolk can be released, and eggs are created essentially from the inside out. So after the yolk, we have the egg white. So the egg white would be formed. Egg whites are also known as albumin. And once we have the egg white form, the egg begins to twirl around, swirl around, and you get that classic egg shape, the oval shape that you know eggs are. And lastly, in the longest process, and the most important part of egg formation, is the eggshell. This can take around 20 hours for the bird to form the eggshell, which this is mostly happening overnight. This is also where pigment can be added to the eggs. So like those blue and green eggs that you see at your local farm store? During this 20 hours, the first five or so hours is when pigment is added. And so actually, white eggs that you see at the store don't have any pigment added to their shell. However, brown eggs do, and then the blue and the green that you can see.
Rebecca Dube 5:04
I have a question tied to that. There was an old advertising slogan that said "Brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are fresh." But does egg pigment have any influence on whether an egg is local? What was that tied to, that slogan that they would say that?
Katrina Klobucher 5:22
Yeah, egg pigment doesn't have anything to do with the localness of the egg or where it was laid. The pigment really comes from the breed of the chicken. So different breeds lay different colored eggs. So it just depends on what the farm, what type of chicken they have at the farm. But after the egg is laid, it takes about 30 minutes for the process to start all over again. So then in another 24 to 26 hours, we'll have another egg in our coop.
Kendall Kunelius 5:52
Thank goodness, because I like eggs. I love going out and collecting them. It's interesting you say 30 minutes, really is so quickly, like the turnaround time after laying, and then the process starts again. I always think it's interesting. Every time I watch my chickens lay an egg, they literally, like, pop out the egg, they take two seconds to recover, and then they run over to the water, and they always have a big drink. I'd be interested to hear, Katrina, your thoughts about the idea of like, the eggs are what the chicken eats. So I don't know if you want to tie all that together for us, but help us understand: the chicken is making that egg, but what helps the chicken make that egg?
Katrina Klobucher 6:36
Yeah, so you see your chickens drink a lot of water. That's because eggs are about 75% water, so it's really important to have clean, fresh water at all times within your coop or your chicken pen, as well as good quality feed. Egg production takes a lot of calcium to create a good, strong eggshell. And the eggshell is really the barrier to keep bacteria out of the eggs. So we want a strong shell, and if we have weak shells, our hens could actually break them as they're in the nest box. And we don't want broken, we want as many eggs as in our fridge as we can get! So it's really important to feed a quality diet to our chickens.
Kendall Kunelius 7:15
Yeah. I also think one of the interesting things about poultry feed, as someone who came from the feed and grain industries, is how many different formulations there are. For poultry feed, there's everything from a game feed or a game bird crumble, as they might call it, that tends to be a higher protein, layer feeds - I see anywhere from 15 to 18% protein. Is it really more about the protein that we're feeding, or is it more about anything else that's in that feed that makes it a layer feed versus a broiler feed versus a game bird feed.
Katrina Klobucher 7:47
Yeah, usually the protein content is specific to the animal for the feed, as well as the minerals and vitamins that are in the feed. [Both] are really important and are specially formulated by animal nutritionists for the specific animal.
Kendall Kunelius 8:03
I also see people feeding oyster shells a lot, or they'll actually crush up the eggshells and feed that back to the birds. Why might someone offer those options?
Katrina Klobucher 8:13
Yeah, I've had to do this in my past as well with my own chickens, because their shells started to get really weak. So as a way you can speed and supplement with oyster shells to try to increase how hard the eggshells are in the birds.
Kendall Kunelius 8:28
And that, I'm assuming, has to do a lot with the calcium component.
Katrina Klobucher 8:33
Shell production takes a ton of calcium away from the bird, so we need to supplement them, sometimes, when they're low.
Kendall Kunelius 8:41
One thing I think is really interesting about chickens is how efficient digesters they are, in the sense that whatever you're feeding them is what they put into that egg, right? But that's why we talked about the water piece. But also their manure is really rich. So, for an example, I have an ornamental bird flock. I have bantams, I have my silkies. I feed them a higher protein feed. I feed them a 22% protein feed, because I see that it helps with their feather production, right? That's what I have them for. They're meant to be pretty and soft, and I don't really have them for egg production. So I'm not as concerned about the calcium or the hardness of the shells, but I am concerned about making sure that their feather production is supported. And a unique fact about the protein content of the feed: if a chicken is fed a higher protein feed and they don't need all that protein, they actually are able to filter out that protein, and it goes into the manure. And correct me if I'm wrong here, but it goes in as like urea, so a nitrogen component to that feed, and that's what makes chicken manure really rich and potent in your gardens. So I don't know if you want to offer some thoughts about if you have a mixed flock, let's just say some bantam, some regular layers. Let's say you have two or three roosters in there. How would you go about assessing that flock to make sure you're meeting everyone's needs?
Katrina Klobucher 9:59
Yeah, chicken manure is definitely a gardener's favorite thing, because it provides so many nutrients to the soil. But if you have a mixed flock, usually we would formulate our diets for the highest producer, because like Kendall said, the protein that we're feeding to our lower producers, they may not be using it all, but it'll just come out the other end into the manure, which then you can add to your garden. So usually you would formulate your diets or choose a feed based on your highest producers that you have. And if it is possible, you can separate your flocks into two different flocks, so you're not over feeding on protein, especially because protein is usually the most expensive portion of the diet.
Kendall Kunelius 10:41
Yeah, and while we're here, let's pause on the idea of animal husbandry, because we're talking about feed, we're talking about water. What other components of egg production - and we're kind of talking like backyard egg production right now, but this makes sense to more of a commercial production size - what other components do we need to think about, besides having a consistent fresh supply of water and also a consistent good quality supply of feed?
Katrina Klobucher 11:06
Yes, the other thing we need, is chickens need 12 to 14 hours of light each day to continue laying eggs. So this is why you may have heard farmers talk about how egg production decreases in the winter because we have less sunlight. So people can actually supplement sunlight in their coops with a regular light that goes on during the day for 12 hours to help keep egg production steady through the winter. Another thing is making sure we have enough nest boxes per animals. So it's recommended to have one nest box per three to five hens. And keeping those nest boxes clean is essential, so we have clean eggs as the result. So you can use anything from shavings to hay or straw, whatever your birds really prefer.
Kendall Kunelius 11:53
I think another thing that I see that impacts egg production is overcrowding. And you mentioned we have certain space requirements that we'd like for our hens to have. So if it's an indoor space, I usually say two to three square feet, and people have runs or they free range their chickens. But I actually got a call from a feed store, and they said "I have a customer who is feeding the right feed. They have water source, everything, enough nest boxes, everything seems to be lining up. Why would their hens not be laying - like if these were previously laying hens, they were healthy. They put them into into a new coop environment, and then all of a sudden they just stopped laying." And interestingly enough, it came down to an issue of overcrowding. So they had too many hens. Even though they had enough nest boxes, they had too many hens in a certain amount of square feet, and they took, they ended up taking out like five or six of the hens, I think is what they said, in like a batch of 30. And then all of a sudden, it was like a light switch. The chickens just started laying again. So stress points in chickens, I tend to find to be another, I gonna say underestimated, but unknown source of issues with production. And I want to yield the floor to see if you have any other thoughts to add to that.
Katrina Klobucher 13:02
Yeah, stress plays in a huge role, even in other livestock as well, and especially yourself. If you're stressed, you're not going to perform the best that you can. So it's the same with animals.
Rebecca Dube 13:14
And what about ventilation as well in a coop?
Katrina Klobucher 13:18
Yeah, ventilation is really essential, especially here in New Hampshire in the summers, when it can get really hot and humid. And if your coop ever gets wet, like on a rainy day, if wind or rain gets in the window, we need to be ventilating that out, because it can get really hot and humid in their coop. And a chicken's not going to want to lay in a 100 degree coop when they can be outside where it's a little bit cooler, in the shade and in the breeze.
Kendall Kunelius 13:43
In addition, we talked about nitrogen the manure earlier. One of the other factors that comes into play when you're thinking about ventilation is making sure you're venting for ammonia or off-gassing from that manure. And interestingly enough, I learned this in one of my facility management classes in college, you have to plan for where that gas is going to be. So ammonia is a heavy gas, and it doesn't tend to rise. So you have to think about the gas that's at the level of the chicken. They're like a foot off the ground, so having low level ventilation as well as high level ventilation. High Level ventilation really helps more with the temperature that hot air rises. We're venting it out, we're getting rid of that hot air. But that intake from the bottom, also that ventilation, that's the low area, helps to clear out that ammonia. Now, of course, good coop management, good bedding management, manure management, to remove that manure that removes that ammonia is important, but exposure to that ammonia gas can actually cause weak egg whites. So in a very interesting article from University of Southern Florida Extension, they have this really fascinating table that talks about all the common problems that we see in egg quality, and they have a column right next to it that talks about the troubleshooting: all the reasons that you might be having that issue. I think ammonia and coop management and that bedding management is a bigger component than some folks think in terms of the quality of their eggs versus just the overall health of the bird.
So really quickly, before we leave the topic of feed, I see a lot of feed bags that say added marigold or added calendula,for that rich yolk color. Do you want to talk to us a little bit, Katrina, about why do people care about yolk quality and yolk color?
Katrina Klobucher 15:30
Yeah, yolk color comes from the carotenoids, which is the yellow, orange or red plant pigments. And those can be found in things like clovers, grasses or other greens or marigolds, like Kendall had mentioned, and this is where we get those dark-colored yolks from. But this can really vary from chicken to chicken, because if your chickens are grazing, not all chickens graze the same way, and they may not be eating 100% the same exact diet. So maybe one of your chickens lays a lighter color yolk than the others, and it can relate to the nutritional value of the egg yolk and what is inside the egg yolk depending on how dark the yolk is.
Rebecca Dube 16:12
Alright. Well, while we're talking about colors, and relating back to what I had mentioned before with the advertising about the color of the egg shell, let's talk a little bit about that. How we can research breeds that produce colored, white, brown, large, small, etc., eggs, and maybe a bit about flock selection for that type of egg production? If I have certain goals as the type of eggs I want to provide, how can I go about researching and learning more about who does what?
Katrina Klobucher 16:42
Yeah, the best thing to do would be looking online for a local hatchery that has chicks, and what breeds they have available. And then once you know what breeds are available, you can do some research on those specific breeds. So like I mentioned earlier, some specific breeds lay blue or green eggs. But keep in mind, they produce less eggs per year than some of our brown egg layers or our white egg layers. So on average, chickens lay about 250 to 300 eggs per year. So that's something to also think about when we're doing flock selection is how many chickens do we actually need? If you have a family of four, it's recommended to have around four to six chickens. If you want a constant supply of eggs in your refrigerator, if you're really big egg eaters, maybe you can have some more chickens. Or if you want to give some to your neighbor, maybe you can have a few more in your flock. But just keep in mind that they do lay an egg every 24 to 26 hours, and it can get pretty easy that all of a sudden you've got 30 eggs in your fridge and you have no idea what to do with all of them.
Kendall Kunelius 17:47
Yes, I agree. One of my favorite things is the colors. I'm really into the colored eggs and the little, tiny eggs. So I yeah, I consume eggs. I like to bake with them. I really like to cook with them, but my husband isn't a huge egg eater, so I personally have found that, since there's really just me in the household consuming the eggs, I went with a smaller breed that I thought was really cute and fun to watch. I have some Bantam Easter Eggers, and of course, I have my silkies, but they produce a smaller size egg, which is honestly just the right size for what I want to consume. And then if I'm baking, I typically add, like, if it calls for two large eggs, I use three small eggs. But Katrina, the thing we didn't mention is, you're big into baking too, right? So how would you go about selecting eggs specifically for people who love to bake or into the cooking thing?
Katrina Klobucher 18:37
Yeah, for me, I love baking, so I'm looking for those, kind of the eggs you find in the grocery store, like the normal large egg you'd find in the grocery store, because that's what most recipes are calling for. So if I have smaller eggs than normal, I may need to add an extra egg, or I just have to keep that in mind when I am baking. Or if I'm lucky and I get a double yolk which happens, sometimes! I have to keep that in mind to adjust the recipe however I see fit when I'm baking.
Kendall Kunelius 19:06
Do you know I actually got a double-yolk silkie egg the other day? In my eight, nine years of owning chickens, I have never had that before, and then just the other day, I was like, wow, that's that is really interesting!
Katrina Klobucher 19:20
Yeah, it is. Having silky eggs, or silkie chickens, do you do anything special for them in the winter, when it's really cold, compared to the larger breeds that may not need as much insulation in their coop?
Kendall Kunelius 19:33
Oh, that's a great question. You know, to be very honest with you, I personally am not a fan of having electricity in my coop space. I know a lot of people who put a heat lamp in. I know people who use those panel heaters for their silkies. Yeah, you know, I don't know.
Katrina Klobucher 19:50
You just have a really hardy silkies!
Kendall Kunelius 19:52
I do, yeah! I had a friend who had a coop fire, and after that, I was like, yeah, I think. So, to answer your question, I just manage them really intensively. So I'm very careful to use a lot of deep bedding. I put in straw - not chopped straw, just regular whole stem straw - and that holds a lot of heat. I make sure that they have- well, I shouldn't say that, I did this year break down and start using heated waters, because I felt like I could use a good enough system that kept that water base up above any of the bedding, so I kind of mitigated the heat issue there. But I make sure they have a ton of fresh, clean water. And then they also always have food, high-quality food available. And I supplement with a mix of sunflower seeds, some which have the shell on and some which have that aventi shell, because they're a really good source of fat, and that fat I tend to see helps to keep those chickens a lot warmer. I'm also lucky because I have a coop that's not just like a prefab coop, it's like, actually like, a shed. So it has good, high ventilation, and so I tend to not have issues with frostbite. And I also have silkies that don't like to roost for whatever reason. They really love to, make this adorable little fluffy pig-pile on the ground, so they really bury into that straw, and they stay pretty toasty. I would say, if you don't have bigger birds for those silkies to hang out with, or to stay warmer, or if you do feel comfortable putting in a heat lamp or a panel, just intensive management seems to do well for me. I also tend to find them to be better layers than maybe what people would think silkies are. They do go broody often. So maybe that's another topic about eggs we haven't touched on yet, is obviously not just the eating the shell eggs, but hatching eggs.
Katrina Klobucher 21:37
Yeah. So we can hatch eggs, either in an incubator, or some people have even had luck having one of their hens hatch out eggs. Personally, I have had terrible luck and things went wrong, and you end up with a really smelly coop when they don't make it the whole way, so we have moved to using an incubator. It takes about 21 days for the eggs to hatch and the incubator is really nice because it turns the eggs when they need to be turned. It keeps the humidity at the right levels and does all the work for you. And then in 21 days, you come back and there's baby chicks in there. So that's awesome.
Kendall Kunelius 22:15
Yeah. But in terms of- You know, maybe this is a good time to get into some of those myths or misnomers about eggs. So okay, one thing that I see on Facebook often (I totally troll the poultry pages). So Katrina, if I have a flock of just hens, are any of those eggs going to develop into chicks?
Katrina Klobucher 22:38
No, you need a rooster in order for the eggs to be fertilized. So all hens, you would have no fertilized eggs.
Kendall Kunelius 22:46
Okay, but do I need a rooster in my flock to make the hens start laying eggs?
Katrina Klobucher 22:51
Nope, you don't. A hen will lay eggs without a rooster. So that's really cool, because sometimes people have really bad experiences with roosters, because they can be a little bit mean. But you can also have really nice ones, so you don't need a rooster in order for your hens to lay eggs.
Kendall Kunelius 23:06
And I just want to take a second and say, too, those are very legitimate questions. I think that there's a lot of good information on the internet. I also think there's a lot of hard-to-understand information on the internet. So when you have questions about chickens, and especially about hens laying, )because I have seen both of those questions posed before), I really think it's important to make sure you have good resources. UNH Extension does have several fact sheets on egg production and laying hens and even broiler production, so I highly recommend your first stop shop to be just Google UNH Extension fact sheet, and then whatever your question is: egg production, hatching eggs, any of that kind of thing; and see what you come up with, even if it's not UNH Extension. I think that Extension resources in general are a really trusted resource when you're getting into the chicken thing.
Katrina Klobucher 23:56
Yeah, there's a couple other fact sheets out there. The New Hampshire Department of Ag, Markets and Food has a fact sheet on eggshell guidelines. So if you're interested in selling eggs to your neighbor or to a store, it's a really great resource on what needs to be on the label for your eggs.
Rebecca Dube 24:15
Could you give us a little overview on some of the regulations for selling eggs or anything that someone has to be aware of if they're going to get into selling their eggs either roadside or at a stand?`
Katrina Klobucher 24:26
Yeah. So that fact sheet that I just mentioned, put together by the New Hampshire Department of Ag, Markets and Food, goes into all the different recommendations and regulations. So we recommend that eggs are washed, with washing happening, as soon as possible from collection. We don't want our eggs to be sitting out on a hot summer day. We want to be collecting them as soon as possible and then washing them. And eggs need to be stored at a temperature of less than 45 degrees. So in your refrigerator is a great place to store your eggs. And then on the label, we need to include that: on the label all eggs that are offered for sale shall be labeled with a weight class statement. So you can either weigh your eggs and they can be labeled as the small, medium, large, extra large jumbo that you see in the store, or you can just label them with the term "not sized", so meaning that you're not weighing your eggs before selling them. And your label has to include your name: so your farm name, the address, and the zip code of the farm.
Rebecca Dube 25:31
Does it have to include contact information of any kind, a phone number or email address?
Katrina Klobucher 25:36
Nope, just the name, address and zip of the producer is all that's needed. And you don't even need a sell-by date, but it can be helpful to facilitate stock rotation if we know which dozen of eggs was put in there when.
Kendall Kunelius 25:51
Yeah. The other thing I wanted to touch on, though. Katrina, you mentioned a little bit about, the temperature, the food safety piece. The other reason why I always recommend washing eggs, not just because it talks about on that fact sheet, so washing eggs and then storing in the refrigerator. As someone who has a flock with roosters, I have three roosters in my flock of 15 hens, I have to be really quick about my turnaround time, because I want to avoid anything starting to incubate in that egg. So I have actually had situations where I've stored eggs on the counter because they were really clean. I tend to use a lot of shavings in my nest boxes to avoid manure and mud, any other contaminants on those eggs. And I had them on my counter. It's like 70-75 in my house during the summer, and I went to use them like two days later, and you can see - It's called the bullseye, the little, the germinal disc, I think, is what it's called. It's where they start growing from. I say they, like the chick. So nothing had actually started to develop in terms of vasculature or veins, but you could see that that egg was fertilized. Not just fertile, fertilized, and had I left it in an incubator, it would have turned into a chick. Now, had I left it on my counter, it probably would not, because it's not hot enough and it's not humid enough for that egg to continue to develop. It just meant that it was very evident that at the time I put that egg on the counter, it was warm enough in my house for that egg to start showing it had been fertilized. So if you have roosters in your flock, I think it's a really good best practice to make sure you're collecting eggs daily, you're washing them and then getting them right into the refrigerator, just to mitigate any issues with unwanted surprises when you go to use those eggs. And that's whether you're using them for yourselves or if you're selling them.
So one of my very favorite parts of my day is going out in the afternoon and collecting my eggs. And it's always like, it's like an Easter basket every day, because I have eggs- or egg layers that are colored egg layers. So I have little green and little blue eggs. And of course, they're like, the actual small-size eggs, they're adorable. And I have silkies that lay kind of pinkish cream-colored eggs. And then I have some actual production layers that are olive eggers. So I get a whole array of shapes and sizes and colors of eggs. Now, one of the things that I think is up to the person's discretion -Like, if you're going to go harvest, collect your eggs, and it depends on, you know, are you commercial? Then you need a lot of eggs. So you've got a large container that you're going out to collect them with. Or if you're doing this more of a homestead or backyard, you might have one of those adorable egg aprons with all little pockets in them. Whatever your choice of collection vessel may be, you have to make sure it's something that you can easily sanitize. So something like your egg apron could be put in a hot water wash with a detergent that will help kill any bacteria or viruses or wash any manure contaminants off of that piece of cloth. Or if you are using an egg basket, I don't recommend something like a wooden basket or something with porous material on it that you can't easily sanitize. Something metal or powder-coated that you could put in a sink full of hot, soapy water is really more what we're going for.
Katrina Klobucher 29:04
Yeah, it's really important that we can wash our collection vessel for our eggs, because eggs can have bacteria on the outside, or maybe we had an egg break in the nest box, and all the eggs got really dirty. So then we have egg yolk on the outside of the eggs, and we need to be able to wash whatever we're putting them in. And then really making sure that we're not putting dirty eggs into our refrigerator with other food that we might be consuming, because the eggs can have bacteria on the outside, good and bad bacteria. That bacteria could transfer up to other food in the fridge. So we have to make sure that we're washing them before we put them away with other food products.
Kendall Kunelius 29:45
And I know that fact sheet does talk about what you can wash an egg with. I know there's several products available on the commercial market that are marketed for washing eggs. Several companies have things out. And then I've heard other people use dish soap. Is there anything in particular, Katrina, that you think is really effective, or that you would use or that you would avoid? Is there anywhere that folks could go look that tells them what products are safe to use?
Katrina Klobucher 30:13
Yeah, a mild detergent is what is recommended, that is approved for washing eggs. So that's the biggest thing to look for when you're looking for an egg-washing solution, make sure that it's approved for washing eggs. Because there are some solutions out there that make you think that it's okay to use on your eggs, but it's actually not. And then also making sure that we're not letting our eggs sit in water while we're washing them, because eggs are actually porous so water or the detergent could creep into the egg and something we don't want to have inside our eggs. So it's really important that we think of that
Kendall Kunelius 30:50
I'm thinking here of some of our food safety folks. I went on a visit with one of them, and they said the easiest way that you can tell whether or not you should be using something to wash - to wash anything: produce, an egg. It should say food safe on the back, or safe to use on food products, something of that labeling. And I'm sure we could chat with them and see if they can give us a resource to post in the show notes, or something that can help folks make decisions about what products they should or shouldn't be using when it comes to having a product come in contact with a food item that you're actually going to be then ingesting. Because you don't eat the shell, right? But the point here is that you are saying that egg is still going to get washed and then put into a refrigerator with other food products, or you might be handling that egg while you're making a recipe, and not washing your hands in between - something of that sort. We just want to be really cognizant of the fact that what we want to get is the good stuff inside the egg, but we still have to touch the outside of the egg in order to access the product inside. So just being aware of the chain of contact is kind of what we're getting at with this.
Rebecca Dube 31:51
That's all "eggcellent" information, Kendall.
Kendall Kunelius 31:55
Well, I did say I like talking about eggs and chickens and everything to do with that! So anything else Katrina, in terms of breed selection? We kind of hit that, but we didn't really get so far into like specific breeds. What breeds do you personally have and what are some attributes that made you want to choose those breeds over others?
Katrina Klobucher 32:16
Yeah, a favorite breed of mine is the Rhode Island Red and the Bard Rock Classic. I think it's more because they're pretty more than anything, and they're easy to find in the local stores or in hatcheries. They always have them. I just got some Americanas this year because we're trying to get some of those blue and green eggs into our fridge. So those are always really pretty as well, but sometimes they don't hold up their end of the bargain in laying eggs, because they lay a lot less than our other chickens that we have.
Kendall Kunelius 32:49
I think another piece of, I want to say the poultry puzzle, is definitely egg production. But like you're saying, personality goes a long way, in my opinion. So those Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds are the tried and true New England birds. If you choose to free range, they're great free rangers. They're independent. They have a little bit of a personality, but they're not flighty. They tend to be really dependable birds. Same thing with Buff Orpingtons, Ericanas, Americanas and Easter Eggers all kind of fit into that same similar thing, but they're actually all different "breeds". So you'd purchase them separately. They all lay the same kind of colors of eggs, but I tend to find them to be a little bit more flighty or aloof. They're still good free rangers, but similar to the White Leghorns, they aren't necessarily a docile breed of bird like a Buff Orpington, or that Orpington-typical breed. I heard someone refer to Buff Orpingtons once as the Golden Retrievers of the chicken world, because they tend to be a nice bird to have in your flock if you're trying to balance something out, or if you have small children or other pets or other considerations that are going to be interacting with your flock. Doing your research on picking breeds that tend to have a better personality or a more docile personality, can go a long way.
Katrina Klobucher 34:06
Yeah, especially if you're interested, if you have young kids that may want to have them as pets or be able to hold the chickens and docile breeds, definitely a good idea. There's also a few dual-purpose breeds which some homesteaders or small farms may be interested in. These breeds can be used for either egg production or meat production. They're usually not the biggest meat producers, but they do provide some meat if you're interested in that area.
Rebecca Dube 34:34
And that's a whole other podcast!
Kendall Kunelius 34:37
Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah, we could revisit the broiler and processing piece for sure, but I totally agree. The cool thing about chickens is that there are so many different breeds, and truly, they are a great example of something that has been purpose-bred in many ways. So I'm thinking of things like silkies, which are really just designed to be friendly and. sit on your lap and be soft and fluffy. But there are definitely some areas of the world where that is a native breed, and they do eat them. They're kind of like a specialty food, because silkies, not only do they have black skin, that's a breed hallmark, but they also then have really dark meat. So it's kind of like a follow through on that. I'm also thinking about the Brahma chicken. So those tend to be white. I think they also have a buff Brahma now, but they have like a white with black speckling on their kate, on the napes of their necks, their tails, and then they have feathered feet. Those were actually originally the meat bird of America, and at one point in time, they were over-harvested and not produced enough. And they got moved away from that. But they're a great dual-purpose breed. And in favor of the Cornish Rock, which is really now our standard white meat bird, what you're gonna see in the grocery store. And so I guess I would just really encourage folks who are interested in keeping chickens to make sure that you do your research before you buy and make sure that you're picking healthy chicks. There are definitely breeds out there that are more fragile than others, and they are better suited towards more experienced chicken keepers. I'm thinking of things like Belgian D'uccles, those little fluffy things. They have these adorable little muffs on their face, and there's porcelain, and there's milly colors. And they're beautiful, but they are a little fragile. They're not cold tolerant, and they have a harder time surviving up here, but if you're an experienced poultry keeper, you'll be able to figure out ways to manage them a little bit better. I'm also thinking of more exotic or ornamental breeds, and if you're really interested in that, it's a fun hobby. But just understanding what you're getting into. If you're a first time chicken owner, your decision factors really should be around egg production, if that's what you want. Family considerations, if you have pets or small children, in terms of personality, and then overall hardiness, living in New England especially. We do have high temps, and we really have low temps. So finding breeds that fit all of those aspects of what you're looking for with your poultry flock.
And that brings me to the last part of this episode. Of course, we love talking about eggs, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask both of you, what is your favorite way to eat or use eggs?
Katrina Klobucher 37:11
I think my favorite way is a quiche, because it's like an on-the-go omelet. I don't make them very often, but every time I do, I'm reminded why I love them so much.
Rebecca Dube 37:22
I guess my favorite would be a poached egg. I used to have those with my father, often, growing up. And the length of time to cook a poached egg was as long as it takes for the toast to cook. So when the toast is done, take the egg off the boiling water. That's how long it takes to poach an egg.
Kendall Kunelius 37:37
Really? I can't say I've ever had a poached egg before!
Rebecca Dube 37:41
Oh, yes, they're delicious. Give it a try.
Kendall Kunelius 37:44
I'm gonna have to go grab an egg out of the coop and give it a go. And you said the toast, the exact time it takes to toast a piece of toast?
Rebecca Dube 37:52
That's it. You have your boiling water, you drop your egg in, and you put your toast in the toaster, and when the toast pops up, or it's done, then you take the egg out of the water and it's ready.
Kendall Kunelius 38:02
Interesting. Katrina, quiche is one of my very favorite things to make, because if I get into that situation where I have way too many eggs, it's a great way to use up a dozen, dozen and a half. Well, for me, it's like a dozen, because the eggs are, like, tiny. And then I'm a little bit lazy, and I don't go through and make the crust. I actually just heat up tater tots in the microwave till they're just pliable, and then I smush it out into the pie pan. And then I just pour my quiche mixture right into, like, on top of my tater tot crust, and I bake it, and it works great.
Katrina Klobucher 38:25
Wow, that sounds pretty good. I'm gonna have to try it!
Kendall Kunelius 38:37
Yeah, without having to go through the fuss of a crust.
Rebecca Dube 38:41
And let me qualify, my poached egg recipe is a folk recipe that is not a standard food safety recipe, but I have not had problems with it myself.
Kendall Kunelius 38:50
Yeah, interesting, cool. I don't know. I mean, I like quiche. I'm excited to try poached egg. I love egg salad. Man, if I could eat egg salad every day for the rest of my life, I'd be thrilled to pieces. The trouble I have is that with fresh eggs - fresh eggs are harder to hard boil than an older egg, like something you get at a grocery store. So actually, there's kind of a science behind this. The older the egg is, the more water it has lost. So that egg, the air cell, which is actually at the domed part, the more rounded end of the egg, the larger end, actually grows as the egg gets older. So that's kind of an interesting way you can tell how old an egg is. They have that trick where, if you put it in a glass of water, and if it floats, it's an older egg, and that's actually because there's just more space in that air cell to pull it up to the top of that glass of water, versus if that egg cell, or if that air cell is smaller, it's going to be sinking down to the bottom because it's heavier, because there's more water still left to the egg. But it also means that that membrane, like Katrina was talking about, how that egg is formed, it holds that yolk and that albumen together. And as you lose water, that membrane starts to release from the inside of the egg, the eggshell. So when you hard boil an older egg, it usually peels really nice and clean because it's lost that water, there's more air, so on and so forth. But for a fresh egg, I think it's really hard to hard boil a fresh egg and get it to come out nice and clean. So that's why I always make egg salad, because my hard boiled eggs never turn out really, really nice, and that clean-looking egg for a deviled egg or something like that. But if I'm gonna smash it up, I guess it doesn't really matter what it looks like!
Rebecca Dube 40:30
True, then your yolk color might matter more.
Kendall Kunelius 40:32
True, yeah, if I wanted, like, a nice, bright yolk color for my egg salad to look a little bit nicer, agreed. Yeah, it's delicious anyways. I like making sandwiches. I love eating it with chips. I can't have the dairy thing, so like, for me, dipping a chip in something creamy, like an egg salad, is really satisfying and delicious.
Rebecca Dube 40:53
Oh, that's interesting.
Kendall Kunelius 40:54
Yeah, and you can get different flavor chips.
Rebecca Dube 40:56
That's something for me to try.
Kendall Kunelius 40:57
Yeah! Well, now that it's lunchtime, and now that we just shared all of our favorite egg recipes, I'm going to go try them. So on that note, listeners, if you have any questions, you can find our contact information in the show notes. If you want to connect with us, ask anything else, share episode ideas. You know where to find us.
Rebecca Dube 41:16
Right. Katrina, thank you so much for joining us on this egg discussion, and we'll be talking to all of you again soon on the next episode of Shared Soil.
Kendall Kunelius 41:30
Shared Soil is a production of University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, an equal opportunity educator and employer. Views expressed on this podcast are not necessarily those of the university, its trustees or its volunteers. Inclusion or exclusion of commercial products in this podcast does not imply endorsement. The University of New Hampshire, US Department of Agriculture and New Hampshire counties cooperate to provide extension programming in the Granite State. Learn more at extension.unh.edu.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai. Edited by Rebecca Dube.
