1 - Chickens have no feeling, therefore they don't feel the cold of the frigid winters here.
Chickens shiver, and get
frostbite. They also scream at you if you hurt them, so therefore they
do have feeling.
2 - Pointy eggs hatch male.
If this was true then the
hatcheries wouldn't be paying people to sex the chicks at day old.
3 - You have to have at least one rooster because the chickens won't hide from predators unless a roo tells them to.
4 -
Brown eggs are free range and white eggs are factory farmed.
I keep my chickens in exactly the same conditions and one of
them lays white eggs, one of them lays brown. The egg colour is entirely
based upon breed. Eggshell colour in no way affects the
nutritional content of the egg.
5 - Brown chickens lay brown eggs and white chickens lay white eggs.
Buff leghorns (brown chickens) lay white eggs and Rhode
Island Whites lay brown eggs. However, this story is sometimes true such as with the Rhode Island Red and White Leghorn.
6 - You will definitely get bird flu if you have chickens.
7 - Hens won't lay without a rooster.
I have hens and no
rooster and they lay. You only need a rooster if you are going to breed.
8 - If a rooster crows at any time other than daybreak then there will be rain.
Following that rule,
Texas (which is currently in drought) would be in perpetual flood.
9 - Chickens don't lay eggs in winter
Mine do.
10 - Chickens don't lay eggs in winter because their vents get cold and shrink.
Chicken's laying only
slows down in wintertime because they get less light, which triggers
the egg laying.
11 - You don't need an incubator to hatch eggs, you just need to put them under a fluorescent light
I'll pay you $100 for
every chick you hatch in this way. Chicks need heat to develop.
12 - Roosters crow at sunrise, and only sunrise.
Roosters crow at all times of the day and night.
13 - Eating eggs raises your cholesterol.
This myth stems from old research that suggested that the
amount of cholesterol in our food was directly related to the amount of
cholesterol in our food. However, new research says that it's
the amount of fat (of which eggs have relatively little) in our diets
that affects how much cholesterol is in our blood.
14 - Bird flu can be passed on in meat and eggs.
15 - Too many eggs causes constipation.
This is untrue - this myth was derived from the culinary
term 'to bind' which refers to the ability of eggs to bring dry
ingredients together in a recipe.
16 - Mille Fleur is a breed.
Mille Fleur is a colour pattern but some *uneducated* people think that
mille fleur is a breed. The mille fleurs that they are referring to is
in fact mille fleur d'uccles. Other breeds come in mille fleur as well.
17 - All bantams have feathered feet.
18 - Bantams are the only chickens that go broody.
I have had large fowl go broody before. It's just an old wives tale.
19 - All bantams are fighting chickens.
20 - The male fertilizes the eggs after they are laid.
No, the male mates with the hen, and then one of the sperm in encased in shell with the white and yolk.
21 - Only males have combs and wattles.
No, both sexes have combs and wattles.
22 - Putting a bantam rooster in with your hens will make them lay small eggs.
No, it is the breed of hen, rather than the rooster that determines the egg size.
23 - Green and blue eggs are dyed.
No, it is the breed that determines the colour of the egg shell.
24 - There is something in the feed to make the egg shells blue or green.
No, it is the breed that determines the colour of the egg shell.
Poem (Untitled, Author Unknown)
Please stop me if your've heard this plan,
(It's ancient as the dickens)
Of how a very stingy man
Thought he'd get rich with chickens.
Said he, "I'll not feed corn or wheat,
I can't afford to buy it;
But sawdust should be good to eat,
I'll get a hen and try it."
So he mixed sawdust with some oats,
And bought a female chicken,
And she waxed fat, like thrifty shoats,
And did not die, nor sicken.
So day by day this thrifty guy,
Who should have had his jaw bust,
Cut down the oats, till bye and bye
He fed her naught but sawdust.
And she laid eggs, and all went well,
Until one day he set her,
And in three weeks she hatched out, well...
Her hatch could have been better.
For oh, my friends, from out those eggs,
Instead of domineckers,
There came two chickens with peg legs,
And thirteen...yes...woodpeckers!
This appeared in the April 1921 edition of 'The Poultry Item'.
“These modern methods make me sick”
Thus spake old Biddy Dominick
“We used to please ourselves you bet,
Folks took what fresh eggs they could get,
But now we stay up half the night
and lay our eggs by Mazda light.
This culling also I protest,
I'm getting old, I want to rest.
Yet if in laying I grow lax
I'll be the next to get the axe.