There is a blood spot in my egg! What does it mean? Should I be freaking out?
No. No, you should not. Blood spots are a natural part of the egg-forming process. Egg yolks are formed in the hen's body in a sac lined with blood vessels. This sac splits apart before the yolk makes its journey through the hen's body to form the shell and emerge. Sometimes during the splitting process a small particle of blood is left. This actually has nothing to do with fertilization, and does not indicate a growing chicken.
Fertilization in a recently-laid egg is indicated by a white bullseye pattern. That small white dot will acquire veins, grow, and become a chicken or duck in 21 or 28 days, respectively, if the egg is held at hen-body temperature (roughly 100 deg. F). A fertilized egg in the refrigerator will not develop.
In the commercial egg market, blood spots would be a fault preventing an "A" grading. Usually this would be discovered by shining a bright light through the egg shell, and the nonconforming egg would be redirected to a bakery or other industrial use rather than the direct purchaser of eggs at the grocery store.
At Fulghum Family Farm, we do not grade our eggs (having, apparently, no bright lights, and a decided lack of squeamishness). Occasionally you will find eggs with blood spots, and most, if not all, will have the white bullseye indicating fertilization (thanks, Chicken Little!) These are not defects, are not deleterious to your health, and should not interfere with your enjoyment of our free-range, healthy eggs.
References for more info about eggs, blood spots, fertilization see here.
What is the difference between chicken and duck eggs?
Chicken and duck eggs are mostly the same for the consumer, but we'll point out a few differences. As compared to chicken eggs, duck eggs have a noticeably thicker shell. We believe this is due the ducks' tendency to lay eggs on the ground rather than in elevated nests. The thicker shell protects the egg from the extra wear and tear they experience at ground level. According to some, this make the eggs stay fresher longer.
Duck eggs require an extra whack on the side of the bowl to break. We've found it helpful to use a thin, blunt edge to crack the shells, such as a butter knife, pastry cutter, or thin-edged bowl.
We've also noticed that the inner part of the white tends to stay together better in duck eggs than in chicken eggs. The best way to explain this is that there are two parts of the white in an egg--the inner part closer to the yolk that tends to stay together and the outer part that spreads out more. Duck eggs have a higher proportion of that inner white part, and tend to stay in a smaller circumference around the yolk than do chicken eggs which spread out more. This makes them ideal for Egg McMuffin-type sandwiches. They also are allegedly superior to chicken eggs for baked goods.
Are your animals free-range, organic, vegetarian, etc. etc.?
We let our animals range as far and wide as is safe for them and is best to manage our land. We've got 2.5 acres of pasture and woodland. For a couple of years we've had all the animals roam freely on about an acre of fenced-in pasture on that land. We are now experimenting with rotational grazing--that is, fencing them into limited plots of forest to graze, then rotating them back to pasture when the grass has grown high enough. The reason we are going though all of this trouble is that these little guys have munched down our pasture (that is, grass) rather too much, and we'd like to sustain a decent pasture as well as clear out some of this overgrown forest.
The long-term goal is to have the goats and chickens clear out a bit more forest (much of which is clogged with downed trees from Hurricane Fran, if you can believe it) to create more pasture or garden, while maintaining a fair amount of well-managed forest. The unltd. freedom of our livestock also necessarily has to be restrained by the abundant presence of predators, some of whom can be seen in this video.
We are not certified organic, which involves a whole lotta bureaucratic hoops that we are not at all interested in jumping through. We feed our animals forage (things growing) on our land, commercial animal feeds (mostly from Triangle Farm Store (Nutrena products) and Stone Bros. & Byrd (Winner Feeds out of Mocksville, NC, who seem to have no website, but, are presumably, all kinds of virtuous, since they are more or less local folk). The poultry, especially, eat many varieties of small critters on the farm (including, thank the Dear Lord, ticks, who completely disappeared after we obtained poultry, but also including many bugs, spiders, frogs, lizards, and smallish rodents).
No. No, you should not. Blood spots are a natural part of the egg-forming process. Egg yolks are formed in the hen's body in a sac lined with blood vessels. This sac splits apart before the yolk makes its journey through the hen's body to form the shell and emerge. Sometimes during the splitting process a small particle of blood is left. This actually has nothing to do with fertilization, and does not indicate a growing chicken.
Fertilization in a recently-laid egg is indicated by a white bullseye pattern. That small white dot will acquire veins, grow, and become a chicken or duck in 21 or 28 days, respectively, if the egg is held at hen-body temperature (roughly 100 deg. F). A fertilized egg in the refrigerator will not develop.
In the commercial egg market, blood spots would be a fault preventing an "A" grading. Usually this would be discovered by shining a bright light through the egg shell, and the nonconforming egg would be redirected to a bakery or other industrial use rather than the direct purchaser of eggs at the grocery store.
At Fulghum Family Farm, we do not grade our eggs (having, apparently, no bright lights, and a decided lack of squeamishness). Occasionally you will find eggs with blood spots, and most, if not all, will have the white bullseye indicating fertilization (thanks, Chicken Little!) These are not defects, are not deleterious to your health, and should not interfere with your enjoyment of our free-range, healthy eggs.
References for more info about eggs, blood spots, fertilization see here.
What is the difference between chicken and duck eggs?
Chicken and duck eggs are mostly the same for the consumer, but we'll point out a few differences. As compared to chicken eggs, duck eggs have a noticeably thicker shell. We believe this is due the ducks' tendency to lay eggs on the ground rather than in elevated nests. The thicker shell protects the egg from the extra wear and tear they experience at ground level. According to some, this make the eggs stay fresher longer.
Duck eggs require an extra whack on the side of the bowl to break. We've found it helpful to use a thin, blunt edge to crack the shells, such as a butter knife, pastry cutter, or thin-edged bowl.
We've also noticed that the inner part of the white tends to stay together better in duck eggs than in chicken eggs. The best way to explain this is that there are two parts of the white in an egg--the inner part closer to the yolk that tends to stay together and the outer part that spreads out more. Duck eggs have a higher proportion of that inner white part, and tend to stay in a smaller circumference around the yolk than do chicken eggs which spread out more. This makes them ideal for Egg McMuffin-type sandwiches. They also are allegedly superior to chicken eggs for baked goods.
Are your animals free-range, organic, vegetarian, etc. etc.?
We let our animals range as far and wide as is safe for them and is best to manage our land. We've got 2.5 acres of pasture and woodland. For a couple of years we've had all the animals roam freely on about an acre of fenced-in pasture on that land. We are now experimenting with rotational grazing--that is, fencing them into limited plots of forest to graze, then rotating them back to pasture when the grass has grown high enough. The reason we are going though all of this trouble is that these little guys have munched down our pasture (that is, grass) rather too much, and we'd like to sustain a decent pasture as well as clear out some of this overgrown forest.
The long-term goal is to have the goats and chickens clear out a bit more forest (much of which is clogged with downed trees from Hurricane Fran, if you can believe it) to create more pasture or garden, while maintaining a fair amount of well-managed forest. The unltd. freedom of our livestock also necessarily has to be restrained by the abundant presence of predators, some of whom can be seen in this video.
We are not certified organic, which involves a whole lotta bureaucratic hoops that we are not at all interested in jumping through. We feed our animals forage (things growing) on our land, commercial animal feeds (mostly from Triangle Farm Store (Nutrena products) and Stone Bros. & Byrd (Winner Feeds out of Mocksville, NC, who seem to have no website, but, are presumably, all kinds of virtuous, since they are more or less local folk). The poultry, especially, eat many varieties of small critters on the farm (including, thank the Dear Lord, ticks, who completely disappeared after we obtained poultry, but also including many bugs, spiders, frogs, lizards, and smallish rodents).