On Fri, 3 Jun 2011 13:24:24 +0000 (UTC), Nad R
> wrote:

>Janet Bostwick > wrote:
>> Are there variances in the fresh eggs you get? Can there be an egg
>> with a runnier white than another egg even though both are freshly
>> laid? (assuming both are from the same breed chicken) Could you tell
>> me more about what you observe? Thanks
>> Janet US
>
>Yes they are variances. Chickens that are molting, older hens, not enough
>bugs can effect the eggs. If a chicken shows any kind of illness gets
>culled and buried. every three years I send them all to butcher. Before I
>do that I get get more chicks and keep them separate from the older hens.
>If a hen is not producing a really nice egg I tend to have chicken for
>dinner.

Nad R, your comment reminded me of something from my childhood. We
raised a couple hundred chicks at a time to fill the freezer once a
year. My Dad put up two bug zappers over the water trough they drank
from, and a light on the water itself. On a summer night, the zappers
would do their thing almost continuously, and each bug zapped would
fall into the water trough below it where it would land on top of the
brightly illuminated water.

It was like Pavlov's dogs, the chickens would hear the zap and all run
like hell for the water trough. The first there would snap up the bug.

At the time, I was about 5 or 6 years old, and I'm now 58, so it's an
old memory. I thought it was a lot of fun watching those chickens race
for the bugs.

My Dad told me later that it supplemented their diet with the protein
from the bugs and helped produce better eggs from the layers and
better meat from the ones destined for the freezer.