May be a little on the muddy side, since it’s that time of the year, but finally our peeps are laying more eggs!

About time!  I was honestly considering some motivational posters for the coop…  The last two months of winter were awful!  We were getting MAYBE 6 or 7 eggs a day and when you have over 70 chickens to feed, that is just not any sign of overachievement!!!

Now before I get a bunch of emails about how hens drop off production and how to use lights and all that, yep, we know all about that.  Frankly, I don’t mind that much, because I think it gives them a little break from constant production.  And we do have a couple lights on, mostly heat lamps to help keep the coops at a tolerable temperature at night.  And about half of our birds are different heritage breeds that tend to slow down in the cold.  But still… 6 eggs?

We actually had to buy one dozen eggs at the store.  First time in like, oh 4 or 5 years?  (We’ve only had chickens for 2 but we were buying farm eggs from Fran and other supplier for at least another 2 or 3….  it was awful!  Never again!

Thank goodness, with this nice sunshine and warm weather, the girls are all trying to make up for the slow down.  We’ve gotten at LEAST two dozen a day and sometimes three or four.  Which is good, because Maggie’s egg customers have been getting a little antsy…  I don’t blame them!  Once you’ve had a good fresh farm egg, you just never want to go back!!!

Now, just a little review…  I don’t know if you’ve seen all the folks on Pinterest that are cooking eggs in the oven!  Yes, hardboiled eggs, basically, without the hard boil.

If you know about farm eggs… you know they are hard to peel because they are so fresh!  Store eggs can be up to 4 weeks old easily, and they work much better for peeling.  We often will keep a dozen or two aside and let them age a bit, just to get them to peel better.

So when I heard all about these crazy folks that pop them into a muffin pan and pop them in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  After they are done, you pop them into ice water for five or ten minutes and poof!  Peelable eggs.

Well, I have to tell you.  It works!  Yep…  and they are really pretty good.  Nicely cooked, no dark ring, no weird uneven cooking.  And they peel pretty darn good.  Now we had a little better success with week old eggs than right outta the chicken eggs.  But that just makes sense.  (You see, it’s that little air sac that enlarges as the egg ages….  that helps to make them easier to peel.)

Now my friend Clinton says there is an egg cooker from Walmart that he’s had great success with!  I think I might just have to check that out…  Because we love hard boiled eggs in salad or just deviled or sliced.  But this whole farm fresh peeling disaster makes it hard to love them.  But now, the muffin pan thing works pretty good… and I just might have to look into one of those egg cookers!!!  Because we are swimming in eggs again!  Yeah!  Happy Spring!!!!