Egg flavour

[chickenfan]

I'm finding the flavour of my birds' eggs has changed in the birds I've moved to the field. They have an unusual more hay-like taste. They are eating grass whereas in my garden they had hedgerow and other plants as well as grass. Or could it be something to do with the soil (very sandy in the field) or different water?

Has anyone experimented with producing really good flavour eggs and what makes for this?

 

[dinosaw]

What goes in is always going to affect the taste of what comes out to some extent, garlic for instance is reputed to change the taste of eggs as it reduces the sulphur in them but I've never experimented with feeding for taste. To do it properly you would need to confine one group of your birds and feed them one particular type of food and then do a taste test against the control group that were eating 'normally' to see what worked as it could be one particular plant on the pasture that was causing the change in taste.

 

[rick]

Its one of those things that is really interesting but also quite subjective and difficult to control. It would likely involve developing an egg flavour description like in wine tasting for consistent assessment. Then combining that with a survey of the grazing that was available in a plot and at different time of the year. After several years of record keeping I bet you would be able to tell if there were buttercups in the meadow by having an egg for breakfast!

 

[valeriebutterley]

I think Cream Legbar eggs are special they do have a lovely "creamy" taste, also Leghorn eggs have a very plain "eggy" taste. Am I an eggspert in the making?

 

[MrsBiscuit]

I am a great believer that the quality of forage makes a difference to the flavour of eggs, as well as the breed. I was fortunate to have a garden in an area famed for its wild grassland and we had a really diverse mix of grasses and their seeds, wild flowers and broad leaf weeds. It's quite a rare and relatively unspoilt habitat and i was lucky enough to win prizes for my egg contents, although obviously they weren't tasted! We had a moisture retentive soil in full sun. Spring grass is lusher and full of goodies, and I would think forage grown on sandy soils is tougher, and drier, so it wouldn't surprise me if it tasted different. Having said all that, my Poland eggs had a better flavour than either the Orps or the Sussex, roaming on the same land, so breed is critical too.

 

[chickenfan]

Interesting. Its sounds lovely where you live Mrs Biscuit. I didn't know different breeds have different flavours, although I know that certain birds lay wonderful eggs, presumably because of the way they forage. Re the field, having read how eggs take on the flavour of everything around them through the shell, I think the change in flavour may be due to the storage in a building with a petrol fridge, so I'll change where I keep them.

 

[rick]

Surly though Chickenfan, you would have noticed before re the fridge? Unless putting the hens in the field just happens to coincide with keeping your eggs in a different place.
That way though the range of flavors could be endless! Toffee, rhubarb and custard, bubblegum...

 

[chickenfan]

Yes that's right. I've only just moved them to the field and the place I store stuff there has a petrol fridge. It didn't occur to me this would change egg flavour, but eggs are very porous and pick up flavours.

 

[rick]

Right. Glad you solved the mystery. Does the fridge have an engine then? I've never seen such a thing.