Backyard Hencam

Adding salt and vinegar is supposed to make easier to peel.

Peeling a fresh, hard-boiled egg can be a frustrating experience. As most of you know, eggs from farms or backyard hens are exceptionally tasty but oh-so-hard-to-peel when hard-boiled. The shell sticks to the membrane inside the shell and, when peeled, a good deal of the white comes off with it. The problem is caused by the moisture content  in fresh eggs. The egg-shell is porous and normally, over time, the egg looses moisture. Supermarket eggs can be weeks or even months old. Dehydration causes the membrane inside the shell to separate and the liquid inside the shell to thicken.

Plunging eggs into ice water should make easier to peel.

Whenever I give my extra eggs to someone, I remind them that these less-than-week old eggs will be hard to peel if hard-boiled. A little research, I think, is in order to see if there is a way to make the process easier. There are step-by-step directions on WikeHow using salt or vinegar to help toughen the membrane surrounding the white of the egg and as a result, making the shell easier to remove. At What’s Cooking in America I found an article that suggested that adding salt to water before boiling makes the whites of eggs rubbery. All articles I’ve found suggest you use eggs at least a week old or more for hard boiling.

Just for fun I set up my own experiment. I selected week-old eggs from Tulip (the Ameruacana), Daisy (the Buff Orpington), and Rosie the (Rhode Island Red). I figured that if I used the eggs of just those three hens in both experiments, I’d eliminate at least one variable. See, I was awake during my 8th grade science class. I let the eggs come to room temperature, covered the eggs with cold water (1 inch over the top), put 1 Tbs. of vinegar and 1 Tbs. of salt, in one of the pans, and brought the water to a simmer. In the other pot I used plain water. I let the pots simmer for two minutes,  covered them, and removed the eggs from the heat. I let the eggs sit, covered, for 15 minutes.

Fresh eggs still hard to peel!

I drained the eggs, shook the pans so that eggs would crackle, and put them into bowls filled with ice water. When the eggs cooled to the touch, I peeled them, (that is, I tried to peel them).

The results? Not so good. The week-old  boiled eggs were nearly impossible to peel without damaging the whites. I saw no difference in the ones simmered in salt and vinegar, and the ones simmered in plain water. The eggs were tender and delicious and no green around the yolk (which is caused by boiling them at a high temperature). What I learned: next time I’ll set aside a dozen eggs for two weeks before boiling them, use plain water, and maybe I’ll try this technique! I’ll let you know what happens. If you have the secret of cooking fresh hard-boiled eggs please tell us about it!

Our youngest granddaughter visited with the hens for the first time this weekend. At 20 months, she’d had no previous experience with chickens and showed no fear. She fed them, walked among them, examined the feeder and waterer, collected the eggs from the egg boxes (only breaking one), and in general, seemed to accept the hens as just another curiosity in a world of curiosities.

Hens and children are curious creatures.

Most of our little granddaughters have met the hens at some time in their lives. None have feared them, but some are more comfortable with them than others. The hens have their own unique reactions to these miniature humans. As we know, children move more quickly than adults. The hens are on their toes when children are near, ready to leap out of reach of the toddlers at any unexpected movement.

The hens circle around the tiny humans, sure that a bit of corn or lettuce will eventually be offered. Some of the hens are shyer with newcomers, than others. Daisy and Rosie will allow themselves to be offered to the youngsters for petting. We can easily pick up these two and let them be petted. They appear to relax as they are stroked, waiting patiently for the ordeal to be over.

We often describe Sweetpea as “Auntie Sweetpea”. She worries aloud about these strangers who’ve invaded her space. Tulip is standoffish, and the two Wyandottes are sly creatures, giving the little humans wide birth.

We built the nest boxes so that we can collect the eggs from outside of the henhouse by lifting the hinged lid and reaching down into the nests. Although this little child is too young to grasp the concept that hens lay eggs, she still expressed delight in finding a hidden egg waiting for her. Who doesn’t?

If you would like to visit with the hens see our home page.

Chicks have what they need.

When chicks are newly hatched, they have some basic requirements, one of them being a brooder. If chicks are not being raised by a hen, “the humans” will have to provide them with all the things a hen would give them. When we brought our “less than three-day-old chicks” home from the farm supply store, they were tiny fluff balls with no hovering hen to watch out for them. They needed to be kept warm, help in finding food and water, and protection from predators. Humans were in charge of all that.

Chicks, whether being raised by a hen or humans, have five basic needs:

• heat
• food and water
• adequate space
• freedom from drafts
• safety from predators

To provide all of these for your baby chicks, a little preparation is recommended. A brooder can be expensive or cheap but is something you will need for the first few weeks of your chicks lives. For the complete article on making a brooder, see “Chicks Need a Brooder” at https://www.backyardhencam.com/?page_id=249 on this site. Hopefully it will get you started on making a brooder that will meet the needs of your tiny flock.

Sweetpea and Daisy at 3 months.

We’ve had our six hens since they were three days old. Like our own children, their personalities have pretty much stayed the same since they were born, or rather, hatched. Daisy, the Buff Orpington, remains sweet and tame. She is the first to jump onto our laps when we sit with the hens in the evenings. Sweetpea, a Barred Rock, is the snuggler. Sweetpea is going through her first moult and is a little “touchy”. Her cluck, has become a bit of a whine which I hope is a result of her moulting and only temporary. I’m looking forward to her feathers returning and  her snuggly personality revealing itself again.

Daisy and Sweetpea have always been close. They lay together in the sunshine. They dust bathe in the same hole. They are both gentle birds, rarely pecking the other girls and never one another. While Sweetpeas moults,  her personality has become somewhat introverted. Daisy is as confused as I am over the recent change in our dear Sweetpea.

Hens are big birds.

I’ve been working on setting up this website on chickens. I’m not proud of its structure. I’ve never been someone who can do something half-way. I’m all in or not at all. I’ve struggled a month to make the site look right. Imagine my husband (who swore he wouldn’t have anything to do with creating a website) and I, squinting over a code, holding our breath and fooling around with it! When we go back to the website and nothing has changed! What frustration!

Yesterday, I was out in the garden readying for a rainy weekend (rare in these parts), and working off website frustration. The hens were in their pen going about their business while I was going about mine, digging nearby. I listened to their “hen talk”. The contented babel that they carry on as they scratch and bathe in the dust sounded like friends over a cup of coffee. There is a throaty Rrrrrrrr……. that one of them makes when a hawk flies overhead. Even a blue jay or crow will trigger that warning sound.

And then, there is always an occasional unpleasant squawk when one of the crankier hens pecks another because she doesn’t want the other to be “in her space”. Sweetpea was getting her share of pecks yesterday as I gardened nearby. I could just hear them saying, “Gads, you’re ugly. Get away!” Sweetpea is moulting, has no tail feathers and her comb and wattles are a pale pink. Someone once described moulting as “hen menopause”. Poor thing! As least she will get over it!