Egg Identification - 101

Today’s topic is EGGS!! Yes, the “incredible eatable egg” comes in many different shapes, colors, and even shapes! Don’t believe me, just stick around awhile!

We have a nice little variety of poultry (chickens, ducks and turkeys), and they are really fun to have around. We currently have Chickens - German Spitzenhaben, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, Araucanas, and Black Australorps. Ducks – Indian Runner, Khaki Campbell, Rouen and Pekin. Turkeys - Bourbon Reds. We have mostly hens and thus can have quite an assortment of eggs.

Here’s a picture of the variety of eggs I collected today.

Can you pick out which bird laid which egg?

Let us begin left to right.

You can double click on the picture to make it bigger.

If you thought the duck laid the green egg, you are incorrect! That was laid by one of my young 6 month old Araucanas, or “Easter Egg Chickens”. They are dubbed as the Easter Egg Chicken as they usually lay green/blue eggs. They have just started laying, so their eggs are a bit small yet.

The next egg in line is a light tan with little brown spots. Most of our hens, in fact all that produce any quality egg size at all, are brown laying. So, if you guessed one of the chickens, you are again, incorrect. Although it’s roughly the size of a chicken egg, it’s more pointed in shape. This is actually from one of my 6 month old turkeys!

By now the next egg in line, the nice sized brown one should be pretty easy. Yes, that’s from one of the brown egg laying chickens. We only have two white egg laying chickens, the Spitzenhabens, but those eggs are very small and they don’t lay often.

Finally, the lovely nice white egg is from one of the ducks. They have lovely size and make the best baking egg! The ducks are pretty good layers, but not as good as the chickens in numbers.

So, you might be asking yourself, do you eat the duck and turkey eggs? Well, of course! They are no different than if you had any other kind of bird egg. Although, I do wonder if reptile eggs would taste the same? Hum…..I just noticed that one of the hatcheries is selling these eggs for $55 a dozen! LOL

The turkey eggs I’d like to hatch out, but right now is not the best time to have young birds. I might keep some aside and put them in the basement over the winter to see if they will hatch out in the spring. I’ve known people that have been successful with this using ducks, but their hatch percent wasn’t over 70%. Something to keep in mind.

There’s your egg lesson for the day! Now, go make yourself an OMELET!!!