06-15-2008, 07:45 AM
Some folks I know swear fertile eggs are much more nutritious than non-fertile eggs. To the extent that they wouldn't swap fresh non-fertile for week old fertile eggs at an even trade. I finally started keeping a rooster around so I'd have a source of fertile eggs for my incubator. He does crow but he crows quieter and less than the other three we had. (Chicken soup does cure crowing, guaranteed!) Eventually, I would love to breed a quiet rooster but until then we have him in the upper chicken coop further away from the house.
What makes the most difference to the nutrition of the eggs is if your chickens can free range. I have a cage full of hens who are being acclimatized to our area so they are kept penned up and fed laying mash. Their eggs have a very pale yellow yolk. The eggs from our free range hens have an orange yolk and a much better flavor.
For quieter chickens, you can try bantams. They actually make cute dove cooing sounds and the rooster's crow is much less than a full sized rooster crow. They do lay eggs, but it will take about five of them to make an omelet for one person. I have some black tailed Japanese bantams which are really cute. They are fairly new and they haven't been set out to free range yet. It will be interesting to see if they can survive the mongoose or not, they have really short legs but hopefully they can fly away far enough if necessary.
How many chickens would you like? We have some young laying hens, some young roosters, a few older hens and some just hatched chicks available. My friend and I have been hatching out chickens and ducks (no ducks at the moment, though, both incubators are full of chicken eggs) so we have a variety of chickens available. Most of these chickens are either mixed breeds or half breeds but they are all from farmyard laying hen varieties, no fighting chickens. Most of them have some Araucana/Americana in them so the hens could lay either a light blue or light green egg. There is also a lot of barred Rock in them so they could also lay light brown eggs.
In several months, we hope to start producing purebred Rhode Island Reds, pure bred Buff Orphingtons and some hybrid sex-link laying hens. (Sex-links come color coded by gender when born so hens can be told apart from roosters) Email me through the forum or at hotzcatz@yahoo.com if you'd like more information about which chickens we have available at this time.
What makes the most difference to the nutrition of the eggs is if your chickens can free range. I have a cage full of hens who are being acclimatized to our area so they are kept penned up and fed laying mash. Their eggs have a very pale yellow yolk. The eggs from our free range hens have an orange yolk and a much better flavor.
For quieter chickens, you can try bantams. They actually make cute dove cooing sounds and the rooster's crow is much less than a full sized rooster crow. They do lay eggs, but it will take about five of them to make an omelet for one person. I have some black tailed Japanese bantams which are really cute. They are fairly new and they haven't been set out to free range yet. It will be interesting to see if they can survive the mongoose or not, they have really short legs but hopefully they can fly away far enough if necessary.
How many chickens would you like? We have some young laying hens, some young roosters, a few older hens and some just hatched chicks available. My friend and I have been hatching out chickens and ducks (no ducks at the moment, though, both incubators are full of chicken eggs) so we have a variety of chickens available. Most of these chickens are either mixed breeds or half breeds but they are all from farmyard laying hen varieties, no fighting chickens. Most of them have some Araucana/Americana in them so the hens could lay either a light blue or light green egg. There is also a lot of barred Rock in them so they could also lay light brown eggs.
In several months, we hope to start producing purebred Rhode Island Reds, pure bred Buff Orphingtons and some hybrid sex-link laying hens. (Sex-links come color coded by gender when born so hens can be told apart from roosters) Email me through the forum or at hotzcatz@yahoo.com if you'd like more information about which chickens we have available at this time.
Kurt Wilson