How many eggs...

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Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
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1,546
Cumbria
IMHO I don't like duck eggs as much as chicken eggs. The white is more rubbery and solid. Something different about the yolk too that's not quite as good.

Apparently it's better for baking though I don't bake so no longer eat them. I've got a work colleague with laying ducks so can get them easily and cheaply.

Chicken eggs are better. Especially if you find a free range farm selling double yolkers. Used to know one that sold them. Size started at xl and went up to XXXXL sized eggs. Imagine a chicken egg larger than supermarket's largest, cut in half around the widest part, the two ends pulled apart, the gap filled with a rippled cylinder of shell and the whole filled with egg yolk and white. The more ripples the more Xes put in the size.
 

mousey

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jun 15, 2010
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NE Scotland
I like duck eggs, my wife and kids not so much. I find them to have a 'meatier' and more 'earthy' taste. [I have ducks and chickens - although they are getting a bit old for consistent laying, they are more pets than live stock] They seem to give a more 'buttery' taste to baking, at least that's my impression of it :).
 

slowworm

Full Member
May 8, 2008
1,980
933
Devon
Thanks for the replies. I'm aware you can freeze 'em although I'm not sure we'll eat pickled eggs. Ducks are on the list as I quite like duck eggs and they are good for baking. We'll probably need a pond for them though, so a bit more of a project.

I was thinking of 6 hybrids, so that may well be 3 dozen eggs a week between two. Selling/giving away is always possible but I'd like to use as many as we sensibly can as that would mean buying in less meat/dairy etc.

On that note, recipes and other ideas very welcome.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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S. Lanarkshire
You can preserve them the old fashioned way too. Just use waterglass. It's safe, reliable, easy to do, and was much used in the past to have eggs, simply as eggs, in the past when the hens stopped laying during the short daylight of Winter.

M
 
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Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
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Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
I am old enough to remember the preserved eggs.
Thank Gods they invented hens that could be persuaded to lay all year round!
Two of us, less than a dozen XL eggs a week.

We love putting thickly sliced hardboiled eggs on buttered Swedish crackerbread, and squeeze Kalled Kaviar ( Kalles creamed cod roe) on top.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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Waterglass preserved eggs are just eggs. They don't look or taste weird, they're just sealed and kept in stasis until used. Normally only for a few months until the hens start laying again.
Either the egg was wiped clean (mind UK eggs are not allowed to be sold 'cleaned', while USA eggs aren't allowed to be sold uncleaned. Ours are left protected and last longer.)
and painted with the waterglass solution and set aside to dry. Or a big pot of solution was used and the eggs just placed into it and left, with the pot covered to keep out dirt and insects, etc.,

Either way the eggs are fine. The white can end up a bit runny but it still works, and it tastes just like fresh eggs.

M
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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I'll take your word for it, I just mind them being used as normal, and I was never fond of eggs anyway.

"During the early 20th century, water glass was used with considerable success. Water glass, a bacteria-resistant solution of sodium silicate, discouraged the entrance of spoilage organisms and evaporation of water from eggs. It didn’t penetrate the eggshell, imparted no odor or taste to the eggs and was considered to have somewhat antiseptic properties. However, it did a rather poor job at relatively high storage temperatures. Eggs preserved in a water-glass solution and stored in a cool place keep 8 to 9 months."
https://www.incredibleegg.org/eggcyclopedia/p/preservation/

M
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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Waterglass preserved eggs are just eggs. They don't look or taste weird, they're just sealed and kept in stasis until used. Normally only for a few months until the hens start laying again.
Either the egg was wiped clean (mind UK eggs are not allowed to be sold 'cleaned', while USA eggs aren't allowed to be sold uncleaned. Ours are left protected and last longer.)....

Umm, yeah, we can buy them uncleaned if we buy them straight from the farm (or from a Farmers' Market) I do it regularly. Same with raw milk. Just seems a little weird for most people though; what with bits of feathers and chicken poop still on them. In four years in England I never bought a single egg that hadn't had all that cleaned off.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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...... recipes and other ideas very welcome.

-Deviled eggs
-Curried eggs
-Egg salad (or eggs as an ingredient in your other salad)
-Omelets (hundreds of variations)
-Frittatas
-Egg nog (previously mentioned and I buy it premade so you'll get a better recipe from youtube)
-Foo young
-Shakshuka

I'll add more as I think of them.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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How on earth are your eggs dirty Santaman2000 ?

The chicken's physiology means that the oviduct kind of extrudes though the exit enough that the egg is laid clean. All that's on it are the fluids from the oviduct which is pretty much a sterile coating for the egg.
That's why ours aren't cleaned, because in doing so that protective coating is removed.

M
 

slowworm

Full Member
May 8, 2008
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Devon
With free ranging hens laying in a nest box there's a chance of the next hen getting dirty feet on the previous egg or worse. Regularly collecting eggs and keeping hens as clean as possible helps or using some form of cage.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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How on earth are your eggs dirty Santaman2000 ?

The chicken's physiology means that the oviduct kind of extrudes though the exit enough that the egg is laid clean. All that's on it are the fluids from the oviduct which is pretty much a sterile coating for the egg.
That's why ours aren't cleaned, because in doing so that protective coating is removed.

M
With free ranging hens laying in a nest box there's a chance of the next hen getting dirty feet on the previous egg or worse. Regularly collecting eggs and keeping hens as clean as possible helps or using some form of cage.

What he said. Plus the hens will poop in the nest (on the eggs) after laying them (especially hens with worms; which is most proper free ranging hens and some commercial battery hens as well)

First minute of this video :D



That's a quite idyllic ideal. It's also staged. Yard eggs are not only rarely that clean, but they're never that uniform in size and color. Those were store bought eggs placed there for the video. Reality is

 
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Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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That's a quite idyllic ideal. It's also staged. Yard eggs are not only rarely that clean, but they're never that uniform in size and color. Those were store bought eggs placed there for the video. Reality is

No, that is not staged. That's Nick and Esther Emery's family. Their chickens are in a chicken tractor at this time of year, and that's their new young hens in that one. They bed their hens in deep litter straw.
I too mind collecting eggs, and they weren't covered in poop or anything else. They were warm though, and I was never terribly fond of hens. Sharp, pecky things are hens. Granny used an old china roasting ashet for the broody hen to 'clock' on. The minute she was off though, there was another hen on laying her contribution too.

M
 
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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
I buy farm eggs. Sometimes they are clean, sometimes they are dirty with spots of poop & straw*. I don't care.
I do nothing until I go to use them. Then wash if needed so I can break 4 to scramble for a megabatch of curried chicken fried rice.
* I'm secretly convinced that the farm couple do things "differently!"
 

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