Free Range or Value eggs?

Curry_Queen

tr3mor wrote:

Too true, I wouldn't pay any attention to an organisation that thinks it's a good idea to stand outside KFC handing out buckets of chicken guts to children!!!

There's much more to it than that too which for legal reasons I can't discuss here, nor is it an appropriate forum, but what angers me more than anything is how they sucker the general public into supporting them through lies and propaganda and get away with it. You may be interested to note that they also run the RSPCA (but I never said that ) ...

Anyway, back to eggs ... I wish mine would hatch one of these LOL! ...

VickyA_2

I buy my eggs from the local butcher too. The farm they're from is 5 miles away and they're lovely, tasty, large eggs. Cost 75p for 6. It bolsters my trying to "buy local" stance..................

fazer6

Ey up chuck, I see you're back then. Hope you had a fanstastic trip.

Caz2_2

Hi all
Hubby used to keep 100 hens and cockerels in our back garden, every morning he put half the eggs in a basket to cook and the other half in the incubator in our bedroom to hatch. I haven't been able to eat eggs comfortably for years and always bought battery hen eggs because i knew that the hens hadn't been treaded, thats the only way i could eat them, if i knew they they were not fertile eggs. But just lately i have started buying free range because i felt so guilty and am trying to eat them. I regularly used to serve up an omlettes whilst listening to chicks trying to crack open their shells, a lovely sight when they did emerge but turned my stomach. Just trying to show a different angle on it.
caroline

Curry_Queen

Hi Caz

Just because they are free range it doesn't mean they have to be fertile eggs. Many farms just keep the hens without a cockerel, and in any case, when the eggs are taken straight from the hens the embryo never gets chance to develop.

On occasion, you may find a very tiny red dot in the yolk of a potentially fertile egg but it's nothing more than a cluster of cells and in no way resembles a chick embryo

Caz2_2

thanks curry queen it helps a bit, if i knew hens were def kept separate i would be ok, but just the thought of cells or red spots, stomach starts going. Our hens and cockerels did run together and all the ones put in the incubator hatched. I have been a veggie for about 20 years and this probably has something to do with it, anyway i am buying free range at moment. Thanks anyway...............you know when something gets stuck in ya head and needs changing...................

mightymo_2

I have just been to our local farm shop. They were selling two different sorts of eggs. Inside one of the egg boxes, it gave the meaning of the codes printed on the eggs:

0 = organic

1 = free range

2 = barn

3 = caged

UK = origin

5 numbers = reference number/location of batch

Unfortunately, the eggs inside the egg box at the farm shop were code 3 - caged!!! Hence I didn't buy!

Grumpysally

Curry_Queen wrote:

They're also very partial to lobelia and a whole range of other bedding plants, as I found out when they demolished several trays of plants I'd bought before I even got chance to plant them!!!

Having spent 5 minutes engrossed in this thread, finally realised why I got this link when I put 'Bedding Plants' in the search engine. Really tempted to get some chickens. Will have to work on other half.
(Maybe I could persuade my son to do it as part of his Duke of Edinbro' award,)
Still haven't found those cheap bedding plants tho' : )

raeble

I don't agree with PETA at all but they have a point about how free are free ranged eggs. I remember watchdog or someone similar investigating free ranged eggs some years back. The chickens were free but they were just in a great big huge barn. Only a few of them ever saw daylight - in fact the battery hens were better off. I will only buy free ranged eggs at the local farmers market which comes round once a month. I only buy value in the supermarket, sometimes I'll buy eggs in Marks which are free ranged - but Marks tend to have higher standards than the rest so I like to think those hens have been treated better.

Debt_Free_Chick

I buy mine at the Farm Gate. I can actually see the chooks on the other side of the gate so I know they're free-range. See them every day in the field when I drive past, too