Can you color Brown Eggs?

A question we often get is, "can you color brown eggs for Easter?"  The answer, "absolutely."  In fact, I think brown eggs make far better Easter eggs.  When white eggs are colored the colors often appear harsh and fake.  Brown eggs tend to produce a softer, more natural color.

Anyway, here's how we color our brown eggs...

Hard cook your eggs.  There are multiple ways to accomplish this task but we prefer steaming.  We have a sauce-pot steamer that will hold a dozen eggs perfectly.  Put about two inches of water in the bottom of the pot and bring to a boil.  Once the water is boiling, place the eggs in the steamer, put the steamer on the pot, and cover.  Set your timer for 18 minutes and move to the next step.  (We place the eggs in the steamer right out of the refrigerator).

Once the timer goes off, give those cackle-berries an ice bath.  I usually stir them a little to help dissipate heat then let them set in the ice water for about 15 minutes or until the next batch is ready when doing large amounts.

Once cooled, placed them on a wire rack to dry or hand dry them.  Don't put them in the carton wet or you may never get them out!  When you put them in a carton wet, especially Styrofoam cartons, they dry and stick to the carton.  We learned this the hard way with raw eggs, big mess.

Fixing eggs this way makes beautiful yolks and eggs that are extremely easy to peel.

I got some professional help when preparing to color these eggs.  Daniel and Bella are skilled at dropping the eggs into the coloring cups and making them splash dye all over the place.

This was our first batch.  We learned that the longer you leave them in the dye, the richer the color.

As you can see, brown eggs do make a beautiful Easter egg.  Not only do our eggs make beautiful Easter eggs, they are good for you.  Contact us today to get a few dozen of our pastured eggs fresh from our farm to your Easter Basket.  740-324-0702

Spring has sprung!

Spring has sprung around Amazing Grasses and not a moment too soon.  The chickens have been needing more and more fresh grass and only now has Mother Nature provided enough to keep up with these hungry ladies.

They've been in the hoop-house since late fall and I think they'll be glad to get back on to pasture.  Plenty of fresh water, sunshine, and available greens, worms, and bugs make the hens happy and our customers happier!

If you look closely at the pictures above you may notice that some of our hens sport stylish red anklets.  These plastic bands tell us that the hens wearing them are nearing two-years-old and theoretically their laying will begin to slow.  We haven't seen it yet but it will happen.  When it does, we'll sell these hens to folks who just want to have chickens or a few eggs now and then.

This morning the boys moved the eggmobile within the confines of the electric poultry netting and began preparing it for the season.

The eggmobile is a mobile chicken coop that allows us to move our hens to fresh grass every 7-10 days.  This is good for the hens since they get a fresh area to pick, find bugs, and play.  It is good for the ground since it won't be picked bare and won't be overloaded with nitrogen from their manure.

Over the next day or so they will allow the hens to get accustomed to the eggmobile again.  Once they are roosting in there rather than the hoop-house, we'll move them out into the lush green field and they'll forget all about that plastic winter home.

Hoop-house B.C. (Before Chickens)

Once the chickens are out of the hoop-house, we'll start seed beds in there for the summer garden.  The hoop-house and the area to the left of it in the picture will all be garden filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and more.

Hershey at 6 months.

Hershey is now 6 months old and Josie is still giving about 2 gallons a day for our family.  The cream has really started to increase as she has access to more and more fresh grass.  Hopefully we can get back to making our own butter once again!

That's all for now, enjoy the weather and stay tuned to more great stuff from Amazing Grasses including some Pastured Pigs this year!