Several weeks ago, I went grocery shopping with Mary Alice. I watched as she selected a carton of eggs and I was surprised at the cost range of a dozen eggs. One carton of a dozen free roaming chicken eggs was priced at $6.12. I read on the carton that these chickens had 108 square feet per hen to roam about.

There were also brown eggs from free roaming chickens priced at $4.75 a dozen, however there was no information on the carton as to the area allowed for these chickens to roam. The price for regular white eggs from pen-raised chickens was $2.50.

I asked Mary Alice if the high-priced eggs were lined with gold. She told me that free roaming chickens do not have chemicals in their food and they eat green plants, which give the yolks of their eggs a dark yellow or orange color. This color is absent from the yolks of industrialized hen eggs.

One of the many Aesop’s fables is about a woman who had a hen that laid an egg every day. Hoping to get twice as many eggs from the hen, the woman fed the hen twice as much grain, but the hen grew so fat she was unable to lay even one egg a day. The fable hints that those who are desirous of more could end up losing that which they have.

A chicken will eat almost anything. This fowl’s gullet is the world’s greatest recycler, and along with this recycling gullet comes a highly potent chicken manure. When mixed with straw and allowed to season, this manure makes an excellent organic fertilizer for flower and vegetable gardens. On the other hand, chicken manure, which is very rich in nitrates, will burn growing things when applied directly.

When riding on a country road with the windows open, the occupants are always aware of the fertilizer spread on the fields.

Occasionally, a bloody spot is seen on the yolk of an egg. If the egg is from a free roaming hen, the spot could indicate the presence of an advanced embryo; however, the eggs purchased in a supermarket are infertile eggs, and a blood spot found on one is caused by a minute hemorrhage occurring on the ovary at the time the egg is being formed.

The eggshell is a remarkably complex structure, which consists of several layers. Of course, the outer mineral layer is formed last. The eggshell can be white, brown or speckled. This is due to a molecule known as porphyrin, which is closely related to hemoglobin, a pigment of the red blood cell.

There is no difference between brown eggs and white eggs, however my dad claimed that he tasted a difference and preferred the brown egg to the white egg. The color of the eggshell is determined by heredity and not by nutrition. The content of the egg has nothing to do with the shell’s color.

An eggshell has approximately 200-minute pores per square centimeter. These pores allow oxygen into the shell and carbon dioxide to escape. The size of the pores is critical because they must be small enough to stop the entry of bacteria.

Before eggs are sent to market, they are washed for the purpose of removing any fecal matter. This washing also removes the cuticle material, causing the eggs to spoil quicker, a problem for the poultry men. It was discovered that contamination could be prevented if the detergent was allowed to dry on the egg and not washed away. Today, keeping eggs fresh is easy with refrigeration. Through the ages, many methods were used to keep eggs fresh, such as being packed in bran or bean meal to keep for over a long period of time; limewater was also used to preserve eggs for as long as six to eight months; eggs were packed in ashes and stacked in pyramids to keep for six or seven months and also eggs were placed in earthen vessels, with warm sheep tallow poured over them.

Our parents and grandparents preserved eggs by using a product called waterglass, which consisted of potassium silicate or sodium silicate that could be purchased in powdered form and then mixed with water and poured into jars and jugs. The eggs were then submerged in this solution and kept in a cool place. In this system, eggs could last almost a year.

Now I wonder who would want to eat an egg that was a year old? William Cobbett (an English farmer) wrote, “Preserved eggs are things to run from, not after.”

If you want to check on the freshness of your eggs, place an egg in a pan of water. A fresh egg will lie flat on the bottom of the pan; a slightly stale egg will have one end tipped up and a very stale egg will stand almost vertically. The different stages are caused by the contents of the egg shrinking, allowing more air inside the egg shell.

I wondered if you could tell the difference between free roaming chicken eggs and those raised by poultry men, but I am too cheap to find out.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.