Eggs for Survival Food?

reply to post by Danbones


One of our egg customers is a driver for the local "food bank" . He drops off things that the bank cant accept and the chickens love it. Like watermelons split and wilted lettuce and cabbage. You name it. They eat most things. Spoiled rotten. LoL

Originally posted by SeenMyShare
Seeing as how this is in a "survival" forum I don't understand everyone who has no rooster. How do you plan to perpetuate your flock?

My flock is "survival" not "homestead" . A homestead flock would have roosters to perpetuate the flock. I prefer to have the eggs without the dealing with the rooster. I had one in the beginning. He had to be killed due to having something stuck in his crop that made him stop eating.

I , being a city boy from birth, kept hoping to find something to help. Two weeks later after his head has been hanging and he was immobile for most of that time I killed him. I raised him from a hatchling and didn't enjoy the experience.
Although, He was a supreme pain in the butt. He would attack when we were feeding them...walking away...etc..

If survival mode lasts longer than a year then my networking abilities have failed and we are screwed anyway. I expect to be able to build a small community during the "survival mode" with each member pulling some load.

Some good info here!

I grew up on home grown eggs, veggies, fruit, and meat. Whn I moved out on my own, I started having to buy my food.

This pst year I have had the chance to enjoy fresh eggs and other foods again...and cant believe the difference in taste

I now wont buy eggs or tomatoes in the stories...for the simple reason of the taste of store bought eggs and tomatoes are in no way a comparison to fresh foods. I now see how the eggs from the store have no taste compared to the fresh eggs.

Is that actualy sanitary? eating a raw egg right from a hens nest? how about form an egg carton>? ide be worried about salmonela and bacteria
i read recently in an anatomoy book , under a small thread for human nutrition, cooking eggs de natures them* the heat kills the nutrient/protein substance.. so that lead me to belive it renders it useless as food* or is that wrong?

Here are some things I learned by keeping chickens:
They love a common weed called filaree or storksbill.
www.ipm.ucdavis.edu...
You can plant grasses and such that produce seeds they will eat.
They love bugs. Especially earwigs and pillbugs. Just let them go walk about and eat bugs. And they always go back to the henhouse at dark.
My family used to go get mealworms at times as well.
Here is a strange thing about feeding I learned when my kids
went Easter-egg hunting, the chickens love Hard Boiled Eggs.
Wow, did I freak out when they went bananas after those eggs!
Thank heavens they were not fertilized.

Preserving eggs that I buy from the store is a snap! After I wrote a lengthy article on egg preservation, I discovered that a quarter cup of warmed mineral oil, coated on my eggs that I buy from the grocery store works great. I then can store them pointed side down in a Styrofoam carton, in a cool, dry place. I don’t have to get the eggs FRESH from a farm. And I don’t have to stack them carefully in anything. How’s that for easy?! I have WHOLE, REAL eggs for up to 9 months! Forget the bran flakes, the paraffin wax, the salt storage. Just some mineral oil is PERFECT. WOW!

10 Things I Wish I Had Known About Food Storage 10 Years Ago



[edit on 19-7-2010 by hawkiye]

I bought a small hobby farm for the survival issue.
Its 15 acres which should allow me to have the crops I need and water wont be an issue. I was planning about 2 chicken shacks of 10 each and a few sheep.
is there a ballpark figure for how much land a chicken needs to feed off of for year round-no snow fall- self feeding?
How about sheep?

Originally posted by ziggy1706
Is that actualy sanitary? eating a raw egg right from a hens nest? how about form an egg carton>? ide be worried about salmonela and bacteria

i read recently in an anatomoy book , under a small thread for human nutrition, cooking eggs de natures them* the heat kills the nutrient/protein substance.. so that lead me to belive it renders it useless as food* or is that wrong?

Not sure if you were commenting to me about 'straight from the hens nest'....but yes...course you wash them...and cook them (at least I dont eat raw eggs). The taste of from these eggs and the ones from the stores is extremely huge...I think the majority of people dont really know or has forgotten from their younger days what a egg is supposed to taste like.

reply to post by awakentired


So, one of those egg-counsel creeps got to you too, huh!?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/54c9dd6ba6a0.gif[/atsimg]
YOU BETTER RUN EGG!


Star & Flag

What do you feed them with to get so much eggs? If you just let them run around then your land must be incredibly fertile and healthy to get so much eggs that you can even sell.

reply to post by JetStream


We supplement their scavenging of bugs, ants, plants..what kind I don't know they just eat what is appealing, and grasses with about 3 cups of layers feed and 1 cup of scratch mixed with oyster shell crumbs per day. That is about 30 lbs a month. $20/month.

People constantly remark how thick the shells are. Since I supplement their food I have no idea what it would take to keep them full in a survival mode. I plan to simply let them forrage. I only have 2.5 acres but am surrounded by several hundred acres of open land that feeds flocks of quails, rabbits and squirrels.

I know my hens produce well and the only thing I can think of , beside being spoiled by my wife, is that they are a hardy breed.
White Leghorns do well in both heat and cold. I have both extremes in Northern Arizona. High this year 115 and low 29.

Thanks for the mineral oil tip. Will have to check that one out.

reply to post by korath


Good stuff, my mom used to pickle eggs.
At first i didn't care much for them but I really got to liking them.

I can endorse having a small hen flock. We live in the city limits but are forunate to have an acre lot with a lot of woods. We are not supposed to have poultry but we decided to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.
By the time the pullets starting laying and chackling loud enough to be heard, we fessed up to the nieghbors by bringing them a dozen fresh eggs. They loved them!

Laying hens are fairly easy to maintain. Ours have a small hen house/roost and a fenced run. We let them out to forage in the yard, which they love, but have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't decimate the garden. We spend $18 a month on grain feed, crushed oyster shell and some scratch. Their feed is supplemented daily by leftovers from the kitchen (no meat or citrus). One important care item is to make sure they always have plenty of clean, fresh water. It gets mighty hot where we are and they can go into heat stroke. We had two that did just that and were able to nurse them back with Pedialyte.

The eggs they provide are fantastic. We chose Rhode Island Reds and Americaunas. The reds lay a nice brown egg while the Americaunas lay colored "Easter" eggs. we get pink, light green and blue...the kids love them!