"Chookie" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Rod Out Back" wrote:

Unfortunately, ours are REALLY free-range, and hang out in the garden
around
the house during the day. We now have to keep the laundry closed (good
egg-laying opportunities there...), and have had to put up chicken wire
fences around smaller and more delicate plants. It is also important to
be
certain all the doors into the house are always closed; they will find an
open door in a matter of minutes. We also have to do the regular
inspection
to find the latest nest, as they seem to think that stealth-laying is a
hoot
for all concerned.

These chooks will be Isabrowns. I am hoping that if I only let them out
after
I've put out the washing, that the eggs will be in the laying box and not
strange hidey-holes in the garden. Do they lay brown eggs?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.

Chookie,

They start out pretty good at laying laying all in the same place. As the
months roll by, however, you get factions that try laying elsewhere.
Probably due to chook politics, which is pretty serious, from what I have
seen.

Most of the eggs are pretty much identical in colour to the ones that come
out of the box in the supermarket. However, we do get some colour
variation, including the odd one with a faint purple colour. I have been
told (here in aus.gardens!) that eating mulberries will do this to a chook,
but we dont know why one or two will throw a purple one. Mostly the eggs
are a dark pink colour.

Biggest difference with our eggs is when you crack them open; BRIGHT yellow
yolk, and the whites are quite thick. Apparently, stale eggs are very runny
when cracked, but really fresh eggs are quite thick.
An article here we have on the freshness of eggs mentions how really fresh
eggs stay together in one 'lump' when cracked into a pan, where stale eggs
run all over the pan. It also mentions that most supermarket eggs are quite
stale by the time you buy them. Not so when the Sisterhood of the Brown
Cackle is on the job!

Cheers,

Rod.......Out Back