Fair Feathers
By Jeanne Hood
Which came first, the chicken
or the egg? At the Clearwater County Fair it depends on where you park! If you
leave your vehicle by Les Schwab and visit the barn first, it’s the chickens.
But if you use City Parking you’ll find the eggs in the exhibit building. And
there is more to exhibiting chickens and eggs than you think.
Let’s start with eggs. As
with all our entries the eggs must come from your chickens - not store bought.
We require six (6) eggs in a clean carton. Some people cut a regular carton in
half. The eggs will be judges on cleanliness, uniformity of size, shell, and
interior quality. The eggs should be the same type and color. You can enter
White, Brown, Bantam, or other, such as Araucana eggs (green, blue or pink).
Start by collecting your eggs
several times a day. By doing this you will lessen the chance of cracked or
dirty eggs and help maintain the interior quality. Clean the eggs immediately in
warm water. Cool water may force bacteria through the shell into the egg.
Spraying the shell with a thin film of mineral oil will help maintain freshness.
Dry each egg and place in a clean carton; pointed end down. Refrigerated eggs
don’t ‘age’ as quickly as eggs stored at room temperature.
You can check the interior
quality of your egg by ‘candling’. Today we use a flashlight, rather than a
candle but the idea is the same. Hold the egg up to the flashlight in a darkened
room. Old eggs will have a large air cell. That is because the white (albumen)
dehydrates or shrinks. You will also be able to see meat or blood spots in the
white. You can also check the air cell without candling by placing it in a bowl
of water. A fresh egg, with a small air cell, less than 1/8 inch, will go to the
bottom and rest horizontally. A week old egg will have the big end of the egg
slightly off the bottom. Two to three weeks and it will settle on the bottom,
big end straight up. A very old egg floats!
Each entry is checked for
quality by breaking open on a saucer. If it’s rotten the smell of sulfur is very
strong. If the egg is poor quality the white or albumen will be runny and the
yolk will be easily broken. A good egg has a firm white that stays in a pool and
the yolk is round and stands up. There will be no meat or blood spots.
The exterior or shell will be
judged on cleanliness. The shell should be smooth and uniformly shaped. No odd
shaped eggs. All six eggs should be the same size and color. They can be small,
medium, large, or extra large, as long as they are the same. The eggs should not
have cracks or fractures visible to the naked eye. Nor should they have ridges
or bulges.
In an eggshell, we hope to
see eggs that are clean, same size, same shape, and same color. When we crack
them open, we hope to see firm albumen and yolks, with no spots and no odor.
So this year, the egg came
first. Next week we’ll fly down to the barn and ruffle some chicken feathers!