Eggs-a-plenty!

Lately I've been mulling over the idea of raising chickens. Not so much for eating, but for eggs. We have a chicken coop in the back of the garage already, but it has been abandoned for several years. I've been told that raising chickens is easy, and I know it's not against the law here because people all around the neighborhood have chickens, goats, cows, horses and other farm animals. My friend has chickens, and I hit her up from time to time for eggs. Her hens are allowed to roam her property, so the eggs are free range and absolutely delicious. Their yokes are a much darker yellow than store-bought eggs.

Lately my friend has been telling me that one of her hens must be laying on eggs outside the hen house; she knew this because the hen, when she called for it, would come running from behind the garage when all the other hens were already around her waiting to be fed. Yesterday she went out to the area she suspected the hen was laying and underneath a junk pile she found 60 (yes, that's SIXTY) eggs! Now, you would think that all these eggs must have gone bad because the hen(s?) had been laying there for quite some time. Apparently, however, there is a way to determine whether eggs are bad or good.

To determine whether an egg has gone bad you simply have to follow these steps:

1. Fill a bowl with cool water.


2. Gently place the egg into the water.


3. If it drops quickly to the bottom, and lies on its side, it is fresh.


4. If it drops to the bottom, but stands on end, it's still okay to eat, but it needs to be consumed soon!


5. If it floats to the top of the water, toss it--it's a bad egg!

My friend said out of the 60 eggs, she had to toss only a dozen! I was the happy recipient of two 18-packs of these eggs, so I had to experiment to see for myself. Though many of the eggs pointed upward (still okay to eat, but an indication that they're a few weeks old), several were still fresh. I boiled up a dozen of the pointer eggs--eggs that are a little bit older are easier to peel than fresh ones.

After this experience I'm beginning to eyeball that chicken coop with renewed interest!