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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think WTF?

255 replies

missbonita · 09/04/2018 12:11

I have a small holding and keep free range chickens.

Dropping DD at a friends this morn I took a box of our multicoloured eggs as a little thank you. When I handed them over she handed them straight back with a look of absolute disgust on her face and said "Oh, no thanks, I cant eat them when I know where they've been" and made a gipping noise/sick face. I thought it was pretty rude but just smiled and apologised "sorry, I didn't know you didn't eat eggs". She then said "I we eat eggs, but I wouldn't eat those" and turned away. She then opened the fridge to put away groceries she was unpacking and I saw a huge box of every day value eggs from tesco.

I didn't say anything else and left but why on earth would anyone eat eggs from caged hens and not free range eggs?

OP posts:
PussGirl · 10/04/2018 19:00

Nuts behaviour to prefer value eggs over delicious free range!

Musicaltheatremum · 10/04/2018 19:00

I'd eat your eggs they taste sooooo good when they're fresh. Really different from the supermarket eggs

Thisisharderthaniexpected · 10/04/2018 19:05

@copperbonnet I’m the same and it never really occurred to me until now! Would love some of those delicious fresh eggs though!

PaddingtonBearHardStare · 10/04/2018 19:09

My DH won't eat eggs like that either as they haven't been tested for salmonella twat Hmm

Roselind · 10/04/2018 19:11

Buy all my eggs free range from a farm I can see from my window as I write. They do have a little sign in the shop explaining that their eggs may come in different shapes and colours.........it does rather make you wonder how they get them all the same shape and colour at Tesco - how many are thrown away as being unsuitable?

Latenightreader · 10/04/2018 19:16

We had chickens at work and Bob, the vol who looked after them, occasionally left a box of eggs for my boss and I. One day, in addition to the usual shades of cream and brown there were two tiny green-blue eggs the exact shade of our rat poison. Being town mice we were very wary of these until a more experienced volunteer arrived, laughed at us, and told us it was natural. Then we discovered that Bob had acquired some new chickens without telling us, which was why they suddenly appeared...

We had two vicious chickens we referred to as the veloceraptors. They would chase visitors, and woe betide you if you wore sandals and nail polish. One day they vanished and Bob said they'd gone to live in a friend's orchard, so we assumed Bob had had chicken for dinner. Two years later I met someone at Bob's 80th who said "Oh, I've got two of your chickens in my orchard!"

Sorry, swerving off topic there, but I hadn't thought about the Denny chickens for ages!

katseyes7 · 10/04/2018 19:18

The silly mare! l'd love to have 'proper' free range eggs. l mean from an allotment or garden, not from a shop. My cousins husband used to have chickens on his allotment, and the eggs were incredible. Sunshiney yellow yolks, and the shells are really strong. lf she's daft enough to think 'value eggs' of any kind are better than ones from healthy free range chickens, that's her look out. l'd have them!

Blatherskite · 10/04/2018 19:19

DD once went to play at a friend's house and when I pocked her up, her Mum gave me a box of fresh eggs from their hens too! Childcare and lovely, free range eggs!

I did try to nurture the friendship but she hasn't been round again since Sad

I'll have to make do with free range from the supermarket. I know you don't have to refridgerate them but I tend to stick them in the fridge anyway as that's what my Mum always does. Does it affect the taste do you think?

I'd love chickens of our own but I'm too busy to care for them properly I think.

Blatherskite · 10/04/2018 19:22

Latenightreader "We had two vicious chickens we referred to as the veloceraptors". I took DD to a talk about dinosaurs on Sunday and the guy said that current research shows that chickens are dinosaurs. Not descended from dinosaurs - actual dinosaurs!

Blatherskite · 10/04/2018 19:25

And *picked Blush

Ceirrno · 10/04/2018 19:35

I guess this all explains the American methods of bottled/cartoned eggs etc

Original poster
missbonita · 10/04/2018 20:00

Ours are all vaccinated but not stamped or anything, I never have enough for my customers unfortunately, probably because my kids and DH are eggs eating machines Grin

The shops use a single hybrid - the goldline in the UK (little red hens) and they lay very uniform shaped and coloured eggs from the first egg to until 12-18 months old. Then the poor girls start to lay every other day/different sizes etc so they are destroyed (or if lucky sold for £1 via one of the rehoming schemes in place).

We have ex battery hens that are 5 years old and still laying - they are egg-sremely grumpy old girls and at the top of the pecking order despite being small and egg-stremely ugly.

We do have a cockerel but he only goes with the hens that we are using to raise chicks - I am happy to eat fertilised eggs (theres no difference) but some of my customers are Jewish and fertilised eggs are not kosher.

Thanks for all the lovely comments - it's made this smell, muddy old farmer very happy.

OP posts:
browneyes77 · 10/04/2018 20:09

She was downright rude.

She’s entitled to whatever bizarre reasons she has for not wanting to eat them, but she could’ve accepted your gift graciously and then always passed them onto someone else who would’ve eaten them if she didn’t want to eat them herself.

To stand there and sound so contemptuous about it was just plain rude.

hdh747 · 10/04/2018 20:15

Am I right in thinking that there are requirements around organic eggs that mean that the chickens have to have a specific amount of space? I work on the theory that free range might just mean not caged, but I'm sure I've read that organic has stricter requirements?

The legal requiremants for both are pretty minimal tbh and a friend whose chickens you can visibly see running around happily will almost certainly have a better life. The space and access to open air requirements for free-range hens are quite pitiful and often mean that huge flocks are housed in massive buildings with a couple of doors which allow the supposed access to the outside that is required for them to be classed as free-range. In reality many of them never actually manage to get in and out of those doors.
The requirements for organic eggs are bigger with 50% more space indoors, access requirements which mean they should all be actually getting outside, and better quality of space outside and more of it.
I buy organic from shops but where I can access actual farms or friends where I can assess the health and welfare of the birds would always go for that. Wish my health would let me have hens of my own.

MumofBoysx2 · 10/04/2018 20:20

Silly woman, she's missed out on lovely fresh eggs. Supermarket eggs are old and nowhere near as nice. Hopefully you'll find someone more deserving of them next time!

sockunicorn · 10/04/2018 20:26

thats rude of your friend! i would have asked where she thought the fridge ones came from and googled a photo of a battery hen for her

milliegeobotandyou · 10/04/2018 20:27

She's probably thinking along the lines of salmonella vaccinations

milliegeobotandyou · 10/04/2018 20:28

Very rude response anyway

InsomniacAnonymous · 10/04/2018 20:43

milliegeobotandyou the OP's hens are vaccinated and saying "I cant eat them when I know where they've been" doesn't sound to me as though she's thinking of salmonella anyway.

Figgygal · 10/04/2018 20:45

Gosh she's rude and ignorant and clearly an idiot I'd struggle to take her seriously again

Original poster
missbonita · 10/04/2018 21:22

I forgot to add, when I collected DD yesterday the mum was there and nothing was said about eggs. I asked DD what she had for lunch and they had a chicken sandwich, which for some reason I found very funny.

I suspect, from the very little I know of her, it is because our hens are truly free range running amok in the fields, digging for worms, scratching up beetles and slugs etc. Obviously, this is much better for them than eating uniform pellets and being in a barn all the time but I can see how it looks 'dirty' to someone who doesn't understand the difference between what we call 'good clean dirt' (eg soil) and chicken poo.

They don't crap on their eggs or in their nests as they do it either when walking around or perching at night and contrary to popular belief they sleep on perches - not on their nests.

More upon request chicken fact fans Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
missbonita · 10/04/2018 21:27

Poultry fact!

Did you know that a female is called and hen, a male a cockerel (or cock Grin or rooster in the US) but a dead one is a chicken. Calling a live hen a 'chicken' is like calling a cow a 'beef'
(but every one does it so it's fine)

sorry, I'll stop now!

OP posts:
Blatherskite · 10/04/2018 21:30

We call them dinosaurs now Grin

Ontheboardwalk · 10/04/2018 21:43

She was very rude and needs to be educated about value eggs and caged hens. It does upset me that people still buy caged hen eggs. Appreciate some people struggle budget wise, but if you aren’t then surely there’s not that much difference in price between caged and free range for something you can get a couple of meals out of?

Must admit though I try not to think about the hen's vagina my scrambled eggs have come out of. Still prefer eggs not from a supermarket, they are lovely.