What Makes a Good Egg?

"What makes a good egg? How does our weather affect the quality? What about the feed? When summer temperatures reach 100+, you may find that you'd rather have a tall glass of water or a slice of watermelon instead of a big heavy meal. Chickens have the same tendencies in hot weather: they eat less and drink more water. When the feed consumption goes down, the protein or solid levels go down and the fluid level goes up, resulting in the runny eggs that some chicken farmers are seeing lately. To keep your chickens cool in the heat, you can take a few precautions: 1. Add one ounce of vinegar to each gallon of drinking water. 2. Allow them to go to large shade areas. Cooler new grass is always appealing. 3. Move them to a shelter around noontime. 4. Hose them down in the middle of the day. Fishy Taste? Sometimes eggs can taste fishy even when they're not cooked in a pan previously used for fish. High levels of oil seed grains like flax, canola or sunflower can promote the transfer of fish flavor. Even feeding hens table scraps that includes bits of meat shouldn't affect the flavor. Fishy-tasting eggs aren't a common experience, but about one person in a hundred can smell or taste fish flavor in meat or eggs even at very low levels. Generally the oil seed grains should be kept at levels less than 10 percent of the feed mix. If you’ve got questions about your poultry feed for premium egg quality, contact Reedy Fork. By the way, to find the answers to these EGGS-tremely relevant questions, we turned to Jeff Mattocks, nutrition consultant from Fertrell Minerals. Jeff, who's given informative talks at Reedy Fork in the past, is the premier authority on organic feed and nutrition. "