Which Came First--The Chicken or The Egg?

Are you a member of Team Chicken or Team Egg?

Egg-traordinary Facts

Eggs from Chicken Women's Girls          Photo credit: Shobe Biz Communications

Crack open a fresh-from-the-farm egg and what's the first reaction? The yolk is orange. Orange yolks mean that the eggs are higher in carotenoids, which usually means the egg has higher amounts of Vitamin A and Omega-3. 

The Stir  at CafeMom.com has twelve surprise facts about eggs. Some of their other fun facts include:

1.  Vitamin D is all in the yolk of an egg.

2.  Those yucky little blood spots in the eggs (that we all try to avoid because it grosses us out) are when a blood vessel ruptures when the egg forms. They are not from fertilization.

3.  The freshest eggs sometimes have cloudy whites.

4.  A bad egg floats. My neighbor told me this one. Just think if all the human "bad eggs" floated??

5.  An egg takes 24-26 hours to form and the large end comes out first (I guess we can liken it to the head of baby). The average hen lays 250-270 eggs a year (ouch!). 

6.  To clean up egg off of the floor? Sprinkle salt on it.

Read the article for more amazing facts.

Here are some past Chicken Women posts that relate to eggs:

Cracking the Shell & Exposing the Heart - what makes hard-boiled eggs easy to peel & much more

Eggs are Excellent for Runners - it's true. They are.

All the Eggs in One Basket - A story about NOT putting all of your eggs in one basket...or maybe it is putting them in one basket, a basket at a time.

The Eggshell Sculptor - extraordinary eggshell art for the nimble of hand.

A Hatching Chick

There's nothing like watching a chicken being born. Here's a Rhode Island Red coming out of its shell. As the video reminds us, do not attempt to help a hatching chicken because interference usually results in the death of a chicken.

If you order your chicks through a feed store or hatchery, it's time to place your orders for new chicks. You don't have to order "your average bears." There are some really unusual chickens out there. I absolutely love some of my unusual breeds and the eggs they lay.

Greenfire Farms in Midway, Florida specializes in selling unusual breeds. They are priced $19 to $999 ($999 for a Bielefelder chick). Imagine, $999 for one chick. Chicks at local hatcheries and feed stores are usually much less, around $3 or so per chick.


"Some people talk to animals. Not many listen, though. That's the problem." - A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh.

Green & Blue Honey?

According to France 24 International News, bees from a dozen apiaries in the Alsace region of France have been indulging in the waste from a M & M waste processing plant, which has resulted in their honey turning from golden yellow into some of M & M's favorite colors: green and blue. The honey has been deemed unsaleable even though it still tastes like honey.

The parent company, Mars, has not released any comment but the waste-processing plant, Agrivalor, said it will now keep the M & M waste in covered containers.

I wonder what color chicken eggs would turn if they had the same pool of candied water to indulge in? Would their eggs melt in your mouth and not in your hands?

Finding a New Home After Hurricane Sandy...for Chickens

Peg's Wyandotte                           Photo credit: Shobe Biz Communications

Hurricane Sandy Update:


Yesterday's Huffington Post article, Hurricane Sandy's NYC Death Toll Rises to 43; Northeast Still Cleaning Up After Devastation, stated that Hurricane Sandy killed a total of 121 people and caused an estimated  $50 billion in property damages and economic losses.

Four hours ago, CNN reported that some are still without power because internal equipment in their homes needs to be repaired first.

The New York Times reported that even though relocating the displaced has begun, tens of thousands of people are going to need homes.

Hurricane Sandy wreaked vast devastation to people and property, including devastation to chickens. Yes, chickens.

Yesterday's article in the New York Times, A Home for Them, And Their Chickens, reports about a couple, Hannah Kirshner and her boyfriend, Hiroshi Kumagai, who have been looking for a new home post Hurricane Sandy  for themselves and their four hens: Chicki Minaj, Hillary Chicken, Black Betty and Salt Hen Peppa aka Cookie Dough. They recognize that they may not be able to place their hens in a new home with them but that is their dream.

Read about the rescue of their hens through chest-high waters by a restaurateur and her partner and the hens' cohabitation with their seven cats!


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How The Chicken Conquered the World - Smithsonian Magazine

Smithsonian.com                                      Tim O'Brien

Chickens aren't chicken "little", that's for sure. In this enlightening article, How the Chicken Conquered the World, Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler discuss the importance of chickens throughout history. Although the article topically swerves around the page a bit, the writers included a vast amount of information. Chicken history is so long and entertaining that it must have been difficult to cull out and lineally represent its many facets.

Here is a recap of some of the highlights of the article:

-   According to archaeologists, chickens were first domesticated for cockfighting, not eating.

-  The chicken has inspired culture, art, cuisine, science and religion for over 1,000 years.

-  The hen is a symbol of nurturance and fertility.

-  Eggs hung in Egyptian temples were supposed to insure a "bountiful river flood."

- The rooster is a sign of virility and is considered to be a heralder of the turning point
   between darkness and light. (See Chicken Women's former post, Harbingers of the Sun).

-  Chickens accompanied Roman troops during wartime and were considered fortunetellers.
    A chicken's good appetite before battle foretold a likely victory.

-  Pope Nicholas I decreed that a rooster figure should be placed on every church roof as a
   reminder of Peter denying Jesus "before the cock crows." That's why many churches have
   rooster-shaped weather vanes on their roofs.

-  An artistic rendering in a first century A.D. mosaic in a house in Pompeii depicts a
   cockfight.

-  The chicken came from the Gallus gallus or Red Junglefowl, as theorized by Charles
   Darwin and recently proven by DNA analysis.

-  In 2004, the complete genome of the chicken was mapped by international geneticists.

- The chicken was the first domesticated animal, first bird, and first descendant of the
  dinosaur. It probably began in the Indus Valley. (See Chicken Women's former
  post, The Distinction of Extinction.)

- Egyptians mastered the art of artificial chicken incubation.

- Chickens were a Roman delicacy, including mashed chicken brains.

- A Roman law in 161B.C. limited chicken consumption to one (1) per day.

- Roman cooks discovered that castrated roosters became fat--thus, the capon.

- European chicken status collapsed with the fall of the Roman Empire.

- Some archaeologists believe that Polynesians brought chickens to the Pacific coast of the
  New World.

- Greenfire Farms in Florida sells very exotic and heritage breeds.

- Since 1987 when Kentucky Fried Chicken opened the first KFC in Beijing, 3,000 KFC's
  have been founded in China. KFC is now more profitable in China than the United States.

All these yummy facts are making me hungry, for eggs that is, not chicken. Although after looking at the Greenfire Farms website, I may just have to order another chick or two.

The Autumn Revolt: The Molt

Zazouse's chicken on Backyard Chickens.com Wins the Worst Chicken Molt Picture

Oh. Oh. It's like the Hans Christen Andersen's children's story, The Emperor's New Clothes. Is anyone going to tell this chicken that she's naked?

It's that time of year when some of our chickens (none of mine, yet, because it's been warm here) are starting to lose their feathers. This picture by Zazouse on Backyard Chickens won the prize for the worst molt.