Egg observations...

One of my regular tasks on the last farm was to collect the eggs three times a day (morning, lunchtime and evening). On an average day I collected between 50 and 60 egg a day, and in addition to collecting them, I washed and boxed them. This meant I spent a lot of time staring at eggs and realised quite a lot of things.

Firstly, all the eggs I've ever bought have been fairly uniform. Even the mixed size boxes are fairly standard in shape, size and colour. Here, the eggs were all different shapes, sizes and colours. Part of this is down to breed - they had four different breeds - Rhode Island Red (which is what most commercial hens are), Bantums (smaller and white eggs), Americanas (black and white/brown, with blue eggs) and White Rock (white, large, lay regular looking eggs). But even the Rhode Island Red's laid a massive variety. Some were white, some darker than average, some long and thin, some almost round, and some were almost twice the size of others. Each box of eggs was a bit of a surprise...

Another thing that I've learnt is that large eggs aren't necessarily good. If the eggs is too large it can cause the hen to prolapse and bleed, and then the other hens will attack her, often resulting in a death

Examples...

Left to right: giant hens egg, regular egg, bantum egg

Left to right: Americana, regular egg laid by a rhode island red, white egg laid by a rhode island red

Left to right: long thin egg, almost round egg