Ohmystinkinheck

Today is Jeff’s birthday. For the next 8 months he’ll be the same age as me. He reminds me this makes me his “Old Lady.” I remind him that he should respect his elders. It is an annual round of insults - and no, it doesn’t get old.

In honor of this monumental event (auspicious occasion), one of our hens FINALLY layed an egg. Actually they just reached laying age, but it seems as though we’ve been waiting forever.

I made a joke, “Which came first … the quack or the egg?”, but Jeff didn’t particularly appreciate the pun on his profession. I think it’s pure genius.

ANYWAY …

It is a good egg. Smaller than the store bought - a nice shade of unbleached, organic, free-range, chicken egg. I can’t tell you how excited we were. Everything stopped.

We.had.an.egg.

Our secret suburban chicken farming experiment is working out nicely.

17 Responses to “A Good Egg”

1. Laura

   I’m so glad I got your email telling me about your new site!!

   Happy b-day to your hubby! I’m two weeks older than my husband and he won’t let me forget it. And the jokes don’t get old over here either.

2. karen

   HOW COOL!! My grandparents had a farm when I was growing up and I *adore* actual eggs. The organic free-range ones I can get in the store just aren’t the same. If you ever get a white chicken with all her feathers on backwards (so she looks like she has curly hair), her name is Phyllis.

3. Kristine

   That IS cool! Are you going to let any eggs hatch? Happy Birthday Mr. OMSH! :)

4. OMSH

   karen - um … curly hair chickens freak me out!

   kristine - we don’t have a rooster, the eggs aren’t fertilized so they can’t hatch. These are being used as layers.

5. jessica

   Is Jeff a psychiatrist? Is that why you call him a quack? I did not know!

   “Everything stopped.

   We.had.an.egg.”

   HAHAHAHAHAHA! I do get it, though!

6. OMSH

   His undergrad/grad work is in PSYCHOLOGY, not to be confused with PSYCHIATRY.

   We know this because if he was a psychiatrist he’d make 3x as much and probably have me medicated.

   I’m just saying…

7. MMM

   OK, maybe YOU can answer this for me. I blogged about it ages ago. Is there a difference between brown and white egggs. You mentioned it was unbleached. I’ve heard that brown eggs are good, but I can’t bring myself to try them cuz they “look different.” You know what I mean? I wasn’t raised on them, so to me, brown egg=yucky and white egg=yummy cuz I already know how they taste. Yes, I am almost 30, but I’m such a child about trying new stuff, and I want to know WHY there are brown eggs and white eggs. Why should I try a brown egg? Sell me on it, sistah.

8. OMSH

   MMM The best way I can answer (and have heard this question answered) is, “If you had a baby what color would the skin be?” Sounds silly, yes?

   If you have a white-ish chicken, you’ll get white-ish eggs. If you have a brown-ish chicken, you’ll get brown-ish eggs.

   I was joking about the color being “unbleached”. This egg came from a Rhode Island Red (brownish-red in tone) and so, the egg is a beautiful brown-ish egg.

   What you see at the grocery is probably put out by White Leghorns. We even have 2 chickens that, if they lay, will lay pastel (no joke) colored eggs.

   However, we are taught that white = clean and brown = dirty; it is easy to see how you view it that way. The color of the shell does not have anything to do with quality or nutrition. Many times you’ll pay more for brown eggs in a store b/c the variety of chickens that lay brown eggs eat more and are more expensive to raise/keep.

   I found this image on flickr - it is a good representation of the variety of eggs you can get.

9. MMM

   Wow, thanks for that. It makes sense that the color of the egg depends on the color of the parent, but I wondered if some eggs were REALLY bleached.

10. some girl

    So, how will it be used? Will it be boiled and eaten alone, or thrown into a cake mix? Oh, the possibilities!

11. MR. OMSH

    LADIES (In my most sexist voice), let me clarify several things. First, tonight Heather and I ate the TWO eggs (mixed with three other store bought eggs) we got from our chickens. They tasted wonderful…[Second] I don’t think there is a significant taste difference between the white and brown eggs. The best laying breeds lay white eggs–more profitable for farmers I suppose. Third, if I were a psychiatrist, Heather and I could afford a farm like Karen’s grandparents. Instead, we live like sharecroppers.

12. Nicole

    Don’t you just love that first egg? We raised 25 chicks a year ago including Rhode Island Reds, White Leghorns, Single Comb Leghorns, Americanas, Buff Rocks, & a few other breeds. I noticed that the brown layers were less frightened with routine cleaning and were more friendly. The leghorns were easily stressed. The eggs will get larger as the hen gets older. I too cannot tell the difference in the white or brown eggs but the difference between fresh, home raised and store bought is incredible. Welcome to the world of chickens and eggs before long you will have more eggs than you know what to do with!

13. karen

    omsh Phyllis was a white chicken but she laid green eggs. I have one saved in a tin - it’s quite faded now, but still green. We didn’t need to dye eggs at Easter because my grandmother’s hens laid eggs in a wild rainbow of colors.

    Mr.OMSH My grandparents’ farm was more cost-saving than profitable. I don’t think they sold anything from it; mainly raised and produced what we’d use (read: a lot of wine and maple syrup, beef, potatoes, eggs. There was also always barley but I remember playing in the grain pile more than ever eating anything made with it). I also think the farm was a great cover story for odd pets my grandmother likes to care for (chickens, ducks, sheep…). In a different time, she probably would have been a great veterinarian!

14. OMSH

    Karen - we have two chickens that will lay pastel colored eggs. They can range from robin blue to green … there is a picture above in my response to MMM that shows this. They are beautiful!

    Your grandmother sounds lovely. I think I could be the same … okay, maybe not lovely … but certainly like odd pets! As does MR. OMSH - he wants goats.

15. karen

    Oooh! Goats keep your lawn trimmed!

16. OMSH

    And your patio furniture, and your plants, and your car antennas, and y’know, anything else in their wake.

17. SPIN Farming: Part II | Oh My Stinkin Heck - How in the heck did you find me?

    [...] feel the need to farm. That is why we have a secret suburban chicken farming experiment going on in our dogrun. We live on less than an acre. Anyway, I posted about SPIN [...]