Backyard Chicken Egg Care Tips

On today’s newsletter podcast segment, Cherie Sintes-Glover, Urban Chicken Consultant and proprietor of the website ChickensForEggs.com, has egg care tips for backyard chicken flock hobbyists: should eggs be stored in the refrigerator or on the kitchen counter (it depends)? Should you wash the eggs, and what temperature should that water be? (It’s important!). Which eggs make the best hard boiled eggs? How can you determine if an egg is past its prime? How many eggs will a hen lay in its lifetime? How do you get your chickens to lay more eggs in the winter? And why you don’t want a heat lamp near your chickens. More chicken care tips, including how to take care of your backyard flock during a summer heatwave, on the Get Growing with Farmer Fred podcast, Episode 204 . Also on Episode 204 of the Garden Basics podcast: why you might want this chicken breed as part of your flock: For those who would rather read than listen, here is the transcript of the full conversation about backyard chicken care with Cherie Sintes-Glover on Episode 204 of the Garden Basics podcast. It includes information about thwarting avian flu, dietary supplements to use (and the ones to avoid) for your chickens in heat waves, and how chickens adjust their body temperature in the heat. You’ll still have to listen to the egg tips presented in the podcast at the top of the page. No transcript for that. From Episode 204 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast: Farmer Fred If you've been in a supermarket lately, you may have seen the prices of eggs you may have seen the prices of chickens, maybe some of you are thinking maybe it's time we get ourselves a chicken and have our own eggs. Well before you do that you want to hear what my next guest has to say. Cherie Sintes-Glover is an urban chicken consultant. She is a certified poultry health inspector as well, and runs a wonderful website, chickensforeggs.com. Plus she does seminars as well Zoom classes. Cherie, the rising prices of eggs and chicken. This isn't because of the war in Ukraine? I think it's the avian flu, isn't it? Cherie Sintes-Glover That's a great question. I think it's a little bit of everything right? It's anytime there's an opportunity for prices to go up. They seem to be going up. But yeah, chicken, gosh, chicken eggs are going for? I think I've seen them as high as six or $7 a dozen in some stores. And it depends on which ones you get. If you get the quote unquote, “organic farm fresh raised eggs” versus the regular, just old-fashioned white ones from Costco. But yeah, the prices have just been skyrocketing. Farmer Fred I have not seen $2 a dozen eggs in quite a while now. Cherie Sintes-Glover No, no. And even the people on your average farm that are selling eggs at a roadside stand, they're raising their prices as well. I think it's because chicken feed costs have gone up a little bit. But anytime there's a rise, we have to kind of keep up with that. And right now, because of that, more people are actually thinking about raising their own chickens. And especially with the uncertainty for a long time, we weren't sure what would be available in the stores or what would be running low. There's still times when I go into Costco and there's no paper towels. So people are trying to think outside of the box or maybe in the box if they haven't already taken that dive into backyard chicken-keeping, like during COVID times. Now they're really considering it, because of the expense and the cost. They want a backup plan. Farmer Fred And one nice thing too, when you raise your own chickens, is the quality of the eggs. They're colorful, they have a nice, deep, rich yellow yolk, and they're much more tasty than what you're gonna find at a grocery store. Cherie Sintes-Glover They're very different. In fact, people are often just kind of shocked and surprised at how flavorful their eggs are. The ones that they have in their own backyard. Chickens that they've raised themselves compared to the ones that they can buy in the supermarket. And the reason for that is just really comes down to that chicken’s diet. So backyard chicken keepers, their flocks are typically searching around in the backyard for bugs and all those wonderful grass weed nuggets out there that they can grab. So because of that they're nutritionally increasing their diet with all of those great nutrients. And that's what makes that yolk just a bit more orange. But what's funny too, is that sometimes even the breeds will make a little bit of a difference. And there is for instance, in our laying flock that we have, I’ll crack open three or four different types of eggs and each of those yolks will be a different color. So it lets me know who's maybe foraging more than the others, perhaps. Farmer Fred Let's talk a little bit about avian flu. It is decimating flocks throughout the country. I know up in the northwest and back east, something like 35 million chickens have been culled, which, by the way is a euphemism, because of the avian flu. Cherie Sintes-Glover There are so many different types of avian flu, people typically don't realize that the one that's circulating right now is the highly pathogenic avian influenza, which is known as the HP A1. In this one, they actually feel it's the worst one since 2015. And back then, in 2015, they had about 50 million birds that were euthanized. So we're getting close to that number, but we're watching it closely because throughout the United States it is beginning to spread. It hasn't luckily, knock on wood, has not reached California. But it has gotten as close as Oregon and Washington. So we are keeping an eye on it. And people need to realize that this is mostly inhabiting wild fowl, and we're talking about wild birds such as ducks and geese that are migrating out there. Although there have been cases within backyard flocks there. They've been minimal, but they are asking people to take certain precautions, especially if they happen to live by large waterways. So waterways or it's funny, the USDA on their website, it talks about lagoons. Luckily, I don't think we have a lot of lagoons here in Northern California. But as we know, the way that the Pacific Flyway goes, all of those migrating ducks and geese are going to be flowing down through California to get to Mexico (this fall). And I think that's what they're trying to be preemptive with. And they want to make sure that people are not only educated but just informed about the flu, this avian flu, and what they can do to protect their own backyard flocks. Farmer Fred Well, give us some quick tips on protecting backyard flocks from avian flu. Cherie Sintes-Glover Oh, sure. So there's a couple of things that backyard chicken keepers can do. And one of them is just use really good biosecurity. And we've heard this before, right. It's things like limiting access to your property to where your chickens are, you want to make sure, too, that you don't have waterfowl, wild ducks and geese, that can actually get into where your coop is located. That's a big one. So having an enclosed coop is always a good thing. We had neighbors that had a duck flock out in their yard. And as it turned out, they have a little pond. Well guess what, one day they walked out and they actually had some wild ducks visit them. Something like that can be definitely a sensitive area and are in or risk for a lot of backyard chicken keepers as well. So doing things like keeping that biosecurity, maybe having a foot bath, limiting that access, those are going to be the key things that most will be able to do to keep their flock safe. Farmer Fred Right . You mentioned foot bath and during the last avian flu outbreak, I remember the emphasis that was p… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe