I hope you're excited. It's the chicken episode of Hello from the Fan. It's officially springtime, which means my chickens are back to producing eggs at full capacity, and I love my chickens. So today we're answering chicken questions. We are going to start today with the life cycle of the chicken. It's the age-old question. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I don't know. But I can tell you that the scientific name for the chicken is Gallus Gallus domesticus. It just means domesticated chicken. I can also tell you that, according to the Smithsonian and lots of scientists, chickens are descended from dinosaurs. That's right, chickens are what's known as a theropod. And there were also dinosaurs that were theropods. So the belief is that chickens are descendants of meat-eating dinosaurs that were theropods. But enough about the Gallus Gallus ancestry. Let's get into some modern day chickens. Here's the basics of chickens. Only the female chickens lay the eggs. Also, human farmers, we do not force hens to lay eggs. They do it on their own. Even wild chickens lay eggs. And why do chickens lay eggs? Well, it's part of their natural reproductive system. They do not give birth to baby chicks. They lay eggs. Laying eggs is a natural part of a hen's life. Do baby chicks lay eggs? No, they do not. Do teenager hens, sometimes called pullets, lay eggs? No, they do not. Hens must be mature enough to lay eggs. Their bodies have to reach a certain point. And this happens around their sixth month of life. If you went to Tractor Supply last week and got yourself some baby chicks and are expecting farm fresh eggs next month, I hate to tell you, but you're gonna be sorely disappointed. It takes about six months for a hen chick to grow into a hen that can lay eggs. As I said before, laying eggs is naturally part of the chicken's reproductive system. It's how they bring life into this world. Now the natural train of thought is, well, wait, if it's part of their reproductive system, every time I eat an egg, am I eating a baby chick? No, you're not. You're not at all. Let me explain why. Not all eggs can turn into chicks. Chickens, like humans, are what's called gonocoric, meaning you must have a male and a female to reproduce. In chickens, this means you have to have a rooster and the eggs must be fertilized by that rooster for the eggs to be viable or to be able to turn into a baby chick. Unfertilized eggs, like the ones you buy at the grocery store, cannot, under any circumstances, turn into chicks. The eggs you generally buy at the grocery store are unfertilized. If you're concerned about this, if you look on your egg carton, it will generally say fertilized eggs if there is a rooster in the flock that that egg came from. You can find fertilized eggs at very few places. There are places like Trader Joe's, they're seasonal, but it will say on the egg carton that they are fertilized eggs. So every time you crack open an egg, don't feel bad. That egg was going to exist if you eat it or not, and it was never gonna turn into a chick because it was never fertilized. It's a use it or lose it type situation with eggs. And this leads me to another question. What if you have a flock, like I do, that you don't have a rooster? Will the chickens still lay eggs? The answer is yes. A hen laying eggs is not determined by roosters. But what about the timing of the eggs? Does every chicken lay an egg every day? The short answer? No. Laying eggs is dependent on a lot of factors. For example, in winter it tends to be darker and colder, and food is naturally more scarce. Remember, chickens lay eggs as part of their reproductive cycle. So of course they're not going to want to bring a baby chick into a world with little food and lots of darkness that's cold. So they lay fewer eggs in the winter. Interestingly, a lot of chickens don't lay during this time without light supplementation. You might have noticed that even though it's cold in winter, there's still eggs at the grocery store. That's because farmers put lights and heaters in the coops to mimic the sun. This causes a natural cycle in the chicken's body to continue to produce eggs. I tend to think of my chickens more as pets, so I don't light supplement in the winter. I let my chickens take a much needed break in the winter. They are pampered. They are just at a chicken spa all winter long. And then when it starts to warm up like it has been the last few weeks, they ramp up production again, and I'm back to getting five, six, and seven eggs a day. You want to know the interesting thing too? Wild chickens don't lay nearly as much as industrialized chickens. When I say industrialized chickens, I mean chickens that were made for laying eggs for humans. Laying an egg every day is very taxing on a chicken's body. They naturally don't lay eggs every day. Over time, humans have done what's called selective breeding to get chickens to lay nearly every day. Basically, you keep the highest producing chickens and get rid of the rest. Now let's talk about those eggs some more. Have you ever wondered about the color of eggs? My chickens actually give green and blue eggs. The first time I gave some to a neighbor, she said, these are lovely, but I can't eat them. I was so confused. I said, of course you can. She said, but they're green. She goes, aren't they just decorative? I said, um, no, no, no, these are not decorative. These are eggs that you eat. I would then talk to her some more and come to realize that she genuinely believed that green eggs were white eggs that had spoiled. That is not how this works. That's that's not how any of this works. Chicken eggs come in a variety of colors and sizes. They can be deep dark brown, all the way to a pinky brown, to a white, to a blue, to a light green, to a beautiful dark olive green. The determining factor is genetics. It depends on the chicken that the egg comes from. Different breeds of chickens or types of chicken give different colors of eggs. All are edible, all are amazing. It just depends on the breed of chicken. If you see a differently colored egg, there's nothing wrong with it. It just means that it has different genetics than the eggs that you're used to. And once you've got those eggs in your hands, what do you do with them? Would you be surprised to know that Americans are one of the few countries that store their eggs in the fridge? If you are listening to today's podcast from outside the United States, you might be surprised to learn what our eggs have to go through before they get to the grocery store. In the United States, it is required by law for an egg to be washed, sanitized, and refrigerated before it can be sold at a grocery store. This extends the egg's freshness by over twice its natural life cycle. So basically, when eggs are sanitized, it removes a protective layer on the egg called a cuticle. A cuticle is a naturally protective layer on the egg that keeps bacteria out of the egg but lets oxygen circulate. It's part of the reason that unwashed eggs don't have to go in the refrigerator. They have a natural protective system all built in. But with that cuticle, it only lasts for about 21 days or three weeks. But sometimes that's not enough time for industrialized eggs to get from one place to another. So in the United States, we wash and sanitize our eggs to give them more longevity for shipment. The crazy part is that this gives us a lot of longevity with our eggs. Would you be shocked to know that the egg you buy at the grocery store can be up to two months old? Yep, it sure can. By law, an egg can be sold up to 30 days after the date it is put into its carton, but it's not put in the carton right away. Farmers have an additional 30 days to get the egg from being laid into the carton. So the egg that you're getting at the grocery store can be up to 60 days old before it hits the shelf. The eggs are still considered good, but they're just older. Older sanitized eggs are just fine to eat, but if you're worried about them, just give it a quick smell test. If it starts to smell off, just toss it. One perk of older eggs is that they are easier to peel. They make great hard-boiled eggs. If you've ever tried to peel a farm fresh egg that's been hard-boiled, you know that it is a struggle. The fresher the egg, the harder to peel. The reason for this is that because they've been sanitized, oxygen can move freely between the outside and the inside of the egg. This adds more oxygen into the inside and to the yolk and the white of the egg and makes it runnier. It also breaks down the membranes that keep it all together. The age of eggs is no yolk matter. And let's talk about those yolks. Have you ever noticed that some egg yolks are a darker, almost orange color than some others that are like a light yellow color? This is due to the chicken's diet. A darker yolk indicates that the chicken has had more variety in their diet. Darker yolks tend to have more vitamins as well as more omega-3 fatty acids. And speaking of the chickens' diet, chickens are omnivores. They are not vegetarians. If you ever see an egg cart that says chickens fed a vegetarian diet, that is not natural. Chickens are omnivores. They eat bugs. They eat meat. They are predators to anything that is smaller than them. One time a mouse got into my chicken's hutch. And you want to know what those chickens did? Yeah, it didn't end well for the mouse. They are tiny descendants of dinosaurs. They will eat just about anything. They are not vegetarians. We just gotta be clear about that. Chickens are omnivores. They are not herbivores. They are not vegetarians, and they're definitely not vegan. And to end the podcast today, I'm gonna tell you some chicken jokes. What do you call a chicken that likes to go on safari? An egg slorer. How do chickens stay fit? They like to egg surcept. What's it called when a chicken falls off of a coop? An egg roll. Okay, last one. What's a chicken's favorite vegetable? An eggplant. All right. And with those ridiculous jokes, I'm Baby Potts, and this has been an excellent episode of Hello from the Band.