h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Common Misconceptions About Chickens/Eggs

Chickens are Filthy/Smelly/Disease-Ridden/Pest-Ridden Creatures

Just like any other animal kept by humans, whether pet, livestock, or zoo animal, cleanliness and health is largely determined on how

the humans in charge keep the environment the chickens are in. Clean, dry, uncrowded surroundings equal clean and healthy poultry,

while noisome, crowded conditions will result in filthy, ill birds.

Chickens Will Draw in Predators

While many predators find chickens tasty, the predators are already around, even in urban settings. For that matter, in many areas, the worst chicken predators are pet dogs--dogs belonging to the chicken owner as well as any that roam the neighborhood.

Chickens are Vegetarians*

No. Chickens are very firmly omnivores. As well as grains and vegetation, chickens will eat anything smaller than they that they can

catch and fit into their beaks. Bigger things will be pecked into pieces or torn apart. A well known observation in chicken forums is

that, no matter how attached you are to your chickens, you do not want to be closed in with them while you're unconcious! The only way

to have a fully herbivorous chicken is to not allow it any contact with the outside world.

Eggs Come in Contact With Feces While Being Laid

While the cloaca is used for elimination as well as egg-laying, there is a valve at the end of the oviduct, just like the valve that keeps food in a human's esophogus from going into the trachea.

No Rooster=No Eggs

There does not need to be a rooster in the flock for the hens to lay eggs. While there are animals that do not ovulate until

copulation has taken place*, chickens are not part of that group. There's actually no mechanism to allow for stimulated ovulation--

roosters have no penetrative organ. Sperm is transferred via 'cloacal kiss'.

If a Rooster is With the Flock, the Eggs Can't be Eaten

This is, of course, in direct contradiction with the above. There are different rationales given for this belief.

1. There's rooster sperm in the egg
No. At most there will be a blastoderm, which is a small cluster of cells surrounded by a white line, thus resembling (and often called) a bull's eye.

2. There's a chick in the egg
A chicken egg has to be kept at 85 F (29.4 C) for several hours for the blastoderm to start developing into an embryo. As long as eggs

are collected regularly and often, there is no culinary difference between fertile and infertile eggs.

Chicken Eggs are Fertilized After They are Laid

That only works for animals that lay nonshelled eggs in an aquatic environment, so, no.

Eggs With a Shell Color Different To What One is Accustomed To* Are Inferior in Some Way

Shell color has absolutely nothing to do with the contents. An egg is an egg is an egg.

Blue or Green Eggs Have Lower Cholesterol/Are Healthier Than Other Eggs

See the above--with a caveat. Most, if not all, blue and green egg laying breeds do not lay enough eggs to make them worth raising commercially. Eggs of chickens that forage for at least part of their diet are significantly lower in cholesterol and saturated fat, and significantly higher in vitamin A, beta carotene, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and vitamin D ( http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-health/free-range-eggs-zmaz09fmzraw.aspx#axzz3IL3uuX4i ). So, while the color of the shell does not affect the contents, an egg with a blue or a green shell was likely laid by a chicken that ate a more natural diet, and thus has healthier eggs. Then again, white, brown, and dark brown eggs laid by chickens that forage also have healthier eggs than chickens that eat nothing but commercial feed.







*According to packages that proudly proclaim that the chickens were fed a vegetarian diet (which is much cheaper to manufacture than

one using animal protein).

*House cats, for one.

*Really varies by region. Some areas have predominately white eggs in shops, while others have brown.

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These have been gathered from a conversation thread on a chicken forum. If you can think of anything else to fit in with these, I can add them.

Excellent information Amy thank you

Pity there is no entry on this

*Ponders pointing out the first NaJoPoMo, where it's stated that the even numbered journal entries will be edited into an entry at the end of the month*

It's inadvisable to be unconscious around your chickens?

Deep enough unconscious to not feel pecking, anyway...

Valuable information Amy I have made a mental note to never get drunk on a chicken farm.

I look forward to the Entry being written Amy. This was one of our original underlying purposes for this Create task -to give people confidence and incentives to write.

Deb

Very interesting stuff, the macabre side of my mind is wondering whether you could get a scary chicken story out of this! So tempted to have a fresh egg farm now, always put it off due to probably all of the points you've just blown out of the water!

Thank you Amy for a very informative journal, it brought a lot of memories flooding back. My cousin who lives in Wales used to have ducks and one when I visited I tried them boiled. They had a very fishy taste to them. I remember going with my mother in the 60's to a farm in Northumberland to collect eggs and I still remember the overwhelming smell of ammonia. I have never been good at boiling eggs as I always get them overdone.

"My cousin who lives in Wales used to have ducks and one when I visited I tried them boiled." [Thinker]

I thought ducks were supposed to be roasted. Not that I should hold myself out as an example of the right way to cook them. Many years ago, when I was you8ng and foolish [as opposed to old and foolish as I am now], I tried to roast a duck in a toaster oven. This seemed like an insurmountable obstacle [and I was already beginning to get hungry ], so I cut the duck in half. I had an extra toaster oven, so I put half a duck in each oven. The duck came out edible, but there was stinky duck fat in both ovens for as long as I had them .

Don't, I repeat don't roast ducks in toaster ovens. You have been warned!

That should have been: "My cousin who lives in Wales ducks that laid eggs where we had some poached and others had them boiled."