Seasonal Nature of Eggs: Spring Eggs are Top Quality and Abundant + Fun Facts About Eggs You Might Not Know

Spring is absolutely fantastic.  We have an overabundance of eggs. If you’ve never had free ranging heritage breed or mutt chickens, you may not know eggs are seasonal in a natural setting. With commercial egg laying facilities and hybrid super layers, we can easily lose touch with the intelligence of nature and the seasonal and cyclical nature of eggs.

Nature is highly intelligent. Once we understand it, it all makes so much sense. But we forget when we are not in direct contact with our little egg producers running around the farm. If you can get eggs at your grocery store year around at the same price and same quality, you just wouldn’t know.

I have learned so much and have been so fascinated by everything on the farm. I love chickens as they eat bugs, scratch up the compost, eat leftovers, add joy, and then gift us with eggs. They truly are magical little beings!

In the spring, they start laying eggs like crazy which is super exciting and overwhelming at the same time. This is the best time of the year for chicks to hatch out. We start seeing hens “go broody” (or sitting on eggs to hatch them.) They can hatch fertile eggs in 19-21 days! Not all breeds of chickens like to go broody and hatch out chicks. We usually have a mix of chicken breeds as we like farm hatched chicks for their superior free ranging skills.

I also love the overall higher quality of the eggs in the spring. The chickens have had a bit of a break in the cold of the winter where they either lay way less or stop laying completely. They also have more access to bugs and fresh greens, so their yolk tends to be brighter orange and more plump looking. It just looks beautiful. I have no idea if the nutrient quality is actually different as I’ve never tested them. But if I had to guess, I definitely would always prefer the spring eggs over anything they produce the rest of the year. 

If we followed nature’s cycle, then perhaps spring is the best time for us to eat more eggs as well 🙂Our dogs and cats love eggs, so they get plenty during the spring. They get it raw, cooked, and “found” (if they go searching for them on their own…) We usually freeze the excess eggs or freeze dry them.

Summer eggs to me look more runny and not as tempting. They just look a bit more limp and loose. Some breeds will not lay much when it is too hot which is completely understandable. So overall, none of us eat many eggs during the summer. Fall eggs are actually quite nice and perky. We start enjoying them again until the winter when it slows down or stops. Our dogs and cats follow along with this egg eating schedule.

Some fun facts:

• When you collect eggs on a farm, it’s better not to wash them as it has a naturally protective layer called bloom. This gives it the extra shelf life. This is also what protects chicks during their incubation phase from harmful microorganisms. Eggs collected from clean nests are very clean. Commercial eggs are always washed… 

• You can leave eggs out at room temperature for a few weeks on the counter (not washed as it needs the bloom)

• In the fridge, a freshly laid egg can last a few months! (don’t do this to your grocery eggs since they are already much older when you buy it)

• You’ll know how fresh your egg really is when you hard boil it. The older it gets, the larger air pocket it has. When it’s fresh, it’s very hard to peel a hard boiled egg. When it’s older, the shells will come off so easily. The flat “surface” on an egg after peeled reflects your egg’s real age. 

• If your egg floats, don’t eat it. Those deep air pockets mean it’s a really old egg.

• Our silly dogs will go looking for eggs and eat them whole… they have come across “in process to chick” eggs. We’ve also heard the rotten egg they managed to find “pop”.  The dogs get splattered with yuck… eeek. Fortunately no one has gotten sick.

• As cool as blue green egg or dark chocolate brown shell colors are, apparently, the nutrient content of the eggs are the “same”...what about the energetic color factor??? I think it’s got something extra special 🙂I choose fun colors!

• White ear lobes on hen, white egg layer. Red ear lobes, brown egg layer… so what color are the green blue egg layers? I forget, I need to go look outside…it’s not green though ;)

• White egg layers are usually the Mediterranean breeds and super flighty (and a bit high strung)- great feed to egg conversion ratio though!

• Brown egg layers are usually the dual purpose heavier breeds- these birds are almost always awesome as a category in temperament and production

• There are soooo many crazy cool breeds of chickens from Silkies (looks like a fluffy toy!) to Sultans (fancy headdress!) and they all lay eggs as gifts!

• Some people and animals are sensitive to eggs- but sometimes it can be just the yolk or the whites. So don’t throw out the whole egg if you’re sensitive to eggs but like the taste! :)

I could go on and on about chickens and eggs :)  

Let me know if anything surprised you about eggs! I’m super curious to know. Have an amazing day!