Creating Bold Yolks

Celebrity chefs know there’s more to food than taste They strive to deliver a meal that’s so handsome it’s as much a work of art as breakfast Sometimes it looks so good it seems a shame to attack it with a knife and fork

 

The best chefs are picky about eggs They insist on yolks with a deep golden hue   Whether they are just frying eggs or blending them into a complex recipe, that bold color impresses diners and makes chefs happy

 

Owners of backyard flocks are often like picky chefs They want their hens to lay distinctive eggs as attractive

Chicken Combs

Imagine a 36-foot-long duck billed dinosaur with a bright comb on its head strutting around the yard Those enormous beasts roamed North America between 65 and 75 million years ago and shared a feature with modern chickens  Both sported fleshy combs!

 

“No one ever suspected dinosaurs may have combs like roosters because the evidence of soft tissue usually decays before fossilization,” said Dr Phil Bell of Australia’s University of New England Fortunately, skin impressions found on a dinosaur skull in Alberta, Canada, revealed that this huge animal did have a fleshy comb somewhat like a chickens Other dinosaur species may

Saying Goodbye

As I weeded a patch of string beans one July morning, sadness overcame me

The plants were loaded with beans, but the silence got to me

 

My garden adjoins our chicken run Whenever I’m planting, weeding, or harvesting, our 14 hens are my companions They watch me from just beyond the fence and encourage my work with cheerful, expectant clucking The hens joyfully feast whenever I toss tasty weeds or vegetable thinnings over the fence  But, on that July morning no perky hens kept me company

Whenever we bring a pail of kitchen scraps

Rocks and Shells Are Good for Hen Health

If bread is the staple of human life, calcium is its backbone Lacking calcium, the bones of every living creature, from people to flounders, wouldn’t exist Without calcium neither clams nor bird eggs would have shells Chickens, and especially laying hens, need plenty of it to maintain both their health and laying ability

 

Laying hens have a calcium dilemma When chickens were wild birds roaming the Southeast Asian woodlands, they would only lay one or two clutches of eggs a year, maybe two dozen total Every egg removes calcium from the hen’s body, but when she didn’t lay many eggs,

Seeking the Earliest Egg

Anyone studying the Hoover’s Hatchery catalog or Website faces one easy and one challenging decision The easy one is deciding whether to buy layer or broiler chicks

With delicious fresh eggs the goal of most people it’s easy to rule out broiler hybrids, like Cornish Rocks

 

Other choices get challenging Hoover’s sells dozens of breeds and hybrids that all promise good egg production How does someone select chicks that are likely to begin laying at the youngest age and keep producing for many months?

 

Actually, that’s also a fairly easy decision but takes some planning and thought  Hoover’s lists the characteristics of

The Delaware – A Hen Dressed for a Wedding

Of the hundreds of chicken breeds only one is dressed to attend a wedding She wears lace every day just in case a ceremony will soon start

 

Most backyard flocks feature Rhode Island Reds, Americaunas, Barred Rocks, Australorps, or Isa Browns Far too few include the wedding breed, the dainty yet meaty Delaware

 

The Delaware is a relative poultry newcomer, had a brief burst of popularity, lost favor as a meat breed and is only recently showing up in some backyard flocks The hens are easily managed good layers that, for anyone so inclined, are big enough to be transformed into

Keeping Bears at Bay

 

Raccoons live almost everywhere and love dining on chickens, eggs, and feed  Wise owners of backyard flocks keep their hens in a sturdy coop with doors tightly closed when nighttime raccoons are on the prowl

 

Imagine the damage a 20-pound raccoon could do to a coop if it weighed 500 pounds!

That would be an American Black Bear

 

In many ways bears behave like giant raccoons They have an amazingly keen sense of smell, love eating chickens, feed, and eggs and have nimble paws able to open gates and unscrew jar lids And, they are strong Take a look at tis photo

Best Breeds for Hot Climates

Summer’s dog days are miserable Plants droop in the heat as wildlife retreat to shady places On scorching days people sequester in the comfort of their air-conditioned home But, what about the poor chickens out in the coop?

 

Chickens feel the heat That seems ironic since the species evolved in the steamy tropics of Southeast Asia  Despite their origin more chickens die of heat stress than from the frigid cold of a northern winter

 

Heat can stress or kill chickens nearly everywhere, not just in the deep south North Dakota and upstate New York, both famous for frigid winters, often see

An Egg’s Epic Journey to the Frying Pan

The delightful fragrance of sizzling bacon fills the kitchen as freshly cracked eggs plop into the frying pan  Along with whole wheat toast topped with English marmalade, few breakfasts are more delicious than eggs fresh from the backyard coop

 

Before those eggs enter the pan, they’ve undergone a remarkable journey that starts in the hen’s ovary

 

When a female chicken hatches she has two ovaries but one gradually shrinks and becomes unfunctional  The other gradually matures to generate all the eggs she’ll lay  When she’s about 20 weeks old, give or take a few weeks, a hen begins ovulation  It is