Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Eggs-Thin shells

We bought eggs for deviling over the weekend, the first 'store bought' eggs in a month or two.
The shells are near paper thin.

What causes this?

Lack of minerals, specifically calcium.

Yep, oyster shell for the craw.

So it's not just me, been telling the wife that for a couple years.

The membrane is thicker than the shell sometimes.

I guess its like everything else, more money for sub par goods.

The commercial guys don't want to pay extra for tough shells.

Basically, if the ration the chickens are fed makes an egg that has a shell only just tough enough to make it to the consumer.....they did good.

I am glad that someone else is noticing. I have been telling people for the last several years about egg shells. We got some eggs from a friend the other day and I was going to have them for breakfast. I smacked it on the bowl to crack it and it bounced off the bowl. Took a couple good wacks to get it to break.

My Daughter has chickens and we get farm fresh eggs from her.

The thickness of the shells is amazing, plus the yolks are way darker and better tasting.

Virgil B.

We hadn't boiled any in a while so I hadn't noticed.
It was a total PITA to peel them.
In the old days you could get one little crack and peel the whole damn thing with one to two pieces of shell.
These SOB's were like a mosaic.

Commercial egg thickness is often related to the age of the layer. At the end of it's life cycle, it's physical resources are pretty much exhausted, so young chicken's eggs are typically thicker than layers two eggs away from the McNugget factory.

They been usin' DDT again.

Guy that used to hunt with us brought eggs from his hens during deer season. His eggs had tough shells. I asked why and he said he gave them calcium.

I've noticed the same thing. You crack the shell and it doesn't even tear the membrane.

Fresh eggs are more difficult to peel. If we
Boil eggs from our chickens we let the eggs age on the counter for a couple weeks before we boil them. Makes them noticeably easier to peel

As far as I know, good scratch for feed costs quite a bit now a days.

It’s the white folks!

Store bought eggs are thin.

The wife made a mess when she was cracking some of our farm eggs and had a store bought egg in there too.

Wack, wack, wack, splat...

Thanks for giving it all away in the name of political correctness.

That's too funny. My Mom did that once last year.

I feed my hens the shells so the calcium is recycled over and over again. Extra calcium makes the eggs hard. I took a couple dozen to mom and she was cooking breakfast and it went, wack wack wack son-of-a-bïtch

yes it does,

and so does the layer pellets, which has calcium (oyster shell and such) added..

According to the "experts" I have consulted (the innanet), scratch should only comprise 10% or so of their daily ration. I prolly spoil mine. I let mine out to free range, eat grass and bugs an scheidt for a couple hours a day most days, they get their pellets in the morning in the fenced in Gulag yard, and then when it's time to call them back in they get a little scratch. They know it's coming so it's easier to get them back in their cell for the night.

Thanks for the reminder, time to get them in and close them up before the 'yotes wake up for their hunting times.