The Poultry Ran.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 12 June 1912, Page 7

The Poultry Ran.

THE FLAVOR IN EGGS,

The flavor-in'eggs depend to a large extent on the kind of food given to the hens. When they are fed largely on raw meat the yolk will be a dark color, -.and the flavor strong and coarse. The eggs from hens that are fed with offal from a slaughter yard exhibit the yolk color and flavor just named. Where milk forms a considerable portion of the food the yolk is paler, and the white often has a milky appearance, while the whole egg is watery and less firm in texture than those laid by hens fed on grain. And just as the color and appearance is affected, so is the flavor. The milk fed hen is insipid, and unsatisfactory when used in puddings or poached. In the making of puddings the quality of the egg is most tested, and sometimes the cook will need 4 eggs to make a custard when she wanted but two a day or two previously. Sometimes four or five eggs wiU not thicken at all, at others two ordinary sized eggs will thicken a pint of milk, and the variation is due to the feeding. The harder the egg is to beat at first the richer it is in good quality, no animal requires a greater variety of food than does the hen, and nothing we can" get contains such capacity for nourishment as an egg. An egg weighing 1^ oz. contains.2o grains of carbon and 17! grains of nitfrogen. As a flesh-producer 1 lb. of egg is about equal to Ilb of beef. And in the egg the albumen, oil, and saline matter, as in pure milk, are in the right proporions for sustaining life. Thus the egg, like milk, is a complete food in itself, containing everything required for t;he developenient of a perfect animal, as is proved by the chicken, whose bones, muscles, feathers, flesh, &c, are all evolved from the white and yolk of an egg.