DOOM: Eggs

[d000hg]

I know geese are seasonal egg layers, but I thought hens laid eggs all year round. Maybe that's only in heated batteries indoors though.

Mind you, in Scotland the hens are probably almost frozen solid in winter and have to wait until they thaw out in the spring!

Yeah it's environmental. In warmer climes they lay constantly, in the UK they don't have the spare energy in winter typically. You can give them different food but we've generally seen they reduce to a trickle, instead of 8 a day we might get a couple, and others report the same who keep them outdoors.

Modern chickens produce anything up to 300+ eggs a year which is really quite amazing and clearly a prodigious energy drain.

[OwlHoot]

When they get laying you are inundated but they invariably stop in the winter. Fun to have if you've space, they're pretty interesting and can become very tame.

I know geese are seasonal egg layers, but I thought hens laid eggs all year round. Maybe that's only in heated batteries indoors though.

Mind you, in Scotland the hens are probably almost frozen solid in winter and have to wait until they thaw out in the spring!

[d000hg]

Can't we blame this on the B word? You aren't even trying.

yes, Bird-flu

Brexit would allow us to change our rules what "free range" means I suppose.

[vetran]

Can't we blame this on the B word? You aren't even trying.

[d000hg]

IIRC when the bird-flu outbreak necessitated Defra instigating the "birds must stay indoors" rules, they gave free-range producers a window they could still refer to them as Free Range which is why they only just have to change the labelling now (probably in the article).

We have kept our own birds for about 5 years now after raising our first batch from eggs and supplementing as they died. Not gone the ex-battery route but the first batch were rescued from my wife's school who hatched them and then were told by the company running the (extortionate) scheme "when you return the chicks we just kill them" so we took them.

When they get laying you are inundated but they invariably stop in the winter. Fun to have if you've space, they're pretty interesting and can become very tame.

[WTFH]

Best thing is to keep ex-bats yourself (see BHWT for details ), or buy them from a neighbour who has chickens.
Most people who have a few chickens will have plenty of spare eggs that they would happily sell on (It's about £1.20 per half dozen). They might not be pasteurised or stamped, but if the people know how to care for hens, the eggs will be very tasty.

[edison]

Most "Free range" eggs seem to be barn eggs anyway as while the chickens are given an opening to go out most don't bother.

This is something I had no idea about until I saw the film Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken... if you ever saw the first Super Size Me film, the director made a sequel where he opened up his own fast food chicken restaurant and in the process exposed the dark practices of mass produced chicken and the fast food industry.

"He opens a barn door and fences in a small, grassless patch of land. Do any of the chickens go outside into the fresh air? No. In fact, he has to chase them to get them remotely close to the door. Not only is it too hot for the birds, but they're so large that they don't really have a desire to be that active. And if he had fed the chickens organic feed (feed made without genetically modified ingredients, like corn), they would be considered organic, despite the fact they never step outside or eat anything wild."

[SueEllen]

Most "Free range" eggs seem to be barn eggs anyway as while the chickens are given an opening to go out most don't bother.

[Paddy]

DOOM Eggs, when I read this I though you had started your menopause.

[AtW]

"Free-range eggs vanish from supermarket shelves

Biggest UK outbreak of bird flu late last year forced farmers to move all their chickens indoors

Free-range eggs are set to vanish from supermarket shelves from Monday, after an outbreak of bird flu forced farmers to move all their chickens indoors four months ago.

Supermarkets are this weekend racing to add new labels to egg boxes, swapping out the term "free-range eggs" for "barn eggs", and placing signs around stores explaining the switch.

It will mean barn eggs are being sold for the first time in years at some stores, including Sainsbury's and Morrisons, which have policies in place where they only sell free-range eggs.

Free-range eggs account for around 70pc of all eggs sold in stores - a level that has more than doubled since 2014, according to figures from data firm Kantar. "

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...arket-shelves/