Mmm, lovely fresh eggs!
How to have lovely fresh eggs?
To have lovely fresh eggs, the main thing is to have a healthy hen. Okay, but what is a healthy hen? A hen that does not have a cold, diarrhoea and whose feathers are not dirty. The condition of the plumage is essential because the feathers provide insulation from the cold in winter and from hot temperatures in summer. Plumage therefore keeps the hen in good health and tells us about their condition.
A regular laying cycle
The second most important element for eggs is knowing the hen’s laying cycle. The first egg production is between the 18thand 20thweek, to the rhythm of one egg per day. The laying season is 50 weeks.A moulting period follows, and then a new laying cycle. A good egg should not be too big or too small and weighs on average 60 grams. The colour of the eggs depends on the breed of the hen.For dark breeds, the eggs are orange; for light breeds they are beige. However, if the egg shell is cracked,this means that the egg is no longer sterile and it is not edible.
The nesting box, or the need for privacy
In your quest for lovely fresh eggs, you need to respect the hen’s laying habits. To lay, hens need a private nesting box which is not over-exposed to light. They are particularly sensitive to light and the alternance between day and night.
Once your egg has given you lovely fresh eggs, do not leave them in the nesting box for too long. Collect them daily, otherwise your hen will start to incubate them. For information, if a hen starts to incubate, you will not get chicks. Your need a cockerel to fertilise the egg and to have chicks. To come back to our lovely fresh eggs, collect them once or twice a day, but before 5pm because after this time, hens stop laying.Keep them at room temperature for sevreal weeks and enjoy them in a variety of ways.