They are much better when you let them age
I want to scream every time I hear or read that some dreamy person wants to change the rules and allow chickens (laying hens) in cities. The last person to hit the headlines was an 11-year-old girl from Ottawa. In June, she was quoted as saying, “I think it would be good to have fresh eggs every day. They are cute and can produce hundreds of eggs a year.”
After learning about food security at school, the 11-year-old wants to change the rules for chickens in the city and provide fresh eggs.
“I was wondering how I could change people’s minds so we could have it,” she told CTV News Ottawa.
Fresh, warm eggs every morning, straight from your own garden? Super tempting? Yuck! Let the eggs ripen and you’ll have a much better tasting egg. You’re not slaughtering an animal and eating it the same day. I prefer my eggs when they’re two to three weeks old. Eggs don’t go bad when refrigerated. Fresh eggs are like jelly and you can’t peel a boiled fresh egg – the egg sticks to the shell.
The fresher the eggs, the harder they are to peel. This is because the white or “albumin” in a fresh egg has a relatively low pH and is therefore acidic. When cooked, this fresh white bonds tightly to the membrane of the inner shell. Let the eggs mature in your refrigerator for a week or two, or longer. They will even keep for up to three months.
As the egg ages, the pH increases and the inner membrane becomes less likely to bond to the egg white, making the shell much easier to peel off.
I know people who drive miles out into the country to buy fresh organic eggs from the farm, and they don’t mind paying the high prices for these eggs, which are no better than the regular, much cheaper eggs at the supermarket. This is according to a study by CBC Marketplace a few years ago. I’ll get into this later.
When I talk to young men who come to my farm to get firewood or use my storage facilities, they often tell me that they would like to have a small farm. So I ask them what they would grow or raise on the small farm. Chickens and cattle are the favorites.
Chickens from the farm, fresh eggs every morning and beef because of the high price in the store.
“So, I would keep chickens so I would have fresh eggs every morning, and I would raise my own beef,” said one city dweller recently.
I asked him if he had had any bad experiences with store-bought eggs – were they ever bad? “No,” he said, “but I’ve heard that store-bought eggs can be a few weeks old.”
“Those are exactly my balls,” I told him.
I told him that pullets and pre-packaged feed for laying hens are very expensive. And he would have to replace the hens after a year. The fresh eggs could cost $20 a dozen or more.
And it’s not just that fresh eggs are hard to peel, backyard chickens attract rodents and Ottawa already has a rat and raccoon problem. There’s also noise, smell and waste disposal. What do you do with chicken poop?
Ottawa’s Animal Care and Control Bylaw prohibits the keeping of livestock, including chickens, in areas not zoned for that purpose.
Some cities allow backyard chicken farming or have relaxed the rules as part of pilot projects. For example, the city of Gatineau in Quebec allows backyard laying hens with a permit and restrictions on lot size and placement of chicken coops.
Here is the ball with the cheap eggs.
Two years ago, CBC Marketplace tested more than 300 eggs from 14 different brands and found that some of the cheapest eggs are just as nutritious as some of the expensive organic varieties.
The cheapest option Marketplace tested was conventional eggs, while organic eggs were the most expensive.
Marketplace tested conventional eggs and their organic versions to see if there was a nutritional difference. For most of the nutrients tested, there were no major differences between the cheaper conventional eggs and the more expensive organic versions.
Organic eggs cost on average more than twice as much per dozen and are laid by free-range hens with access to the outdoors.
The result: conventional eggs are just as nutritious as some organic alternatives.
There you have it, folks. Those expensive organic eggs laid in someone’s garden that morning are no better than the cheapest eggs from the store.
Maynard van der Galien is a Renfrew-area farmer and long-time columnist for the Farmers Forum.
