My Report on Eggs

Eggs

Caged Hens

A lot of the worlds eggs are produced by hens who stay in their cages and never come out. They are called caged hens. The cages that they are in hold up to 6 hens. The space the hens have to move around in is about the size of an A4 piece of paper.  The cages are also on an angle so the hens have to grip on to the bars of the cage. Their cages are on an angle so the eggs roll on to the conveyor belt. Their food also comes  down on a conveyor belt.

Free Range

Some eggs are laid by Free Range hens which live in a shed but come out in the day and actually get to exercise, unlike the caged hens. Free range hens eat grass as well as chicken feed. The down side to free range eggs is that they are a lot more expensive than the caged eggs.

Colour

New Zealanders eat 920,000,000 eggs per year. Those eggs come from different coloured hens. White eggs come from the white hens and the brown egg from the brown hen. The food that the hens eat contain colouring agents that help to colour the yolk a darker yellow.

Health Information

The protein in the egg comes mostly from the yolk, and the healthier egg comes from the Free Range Hen. Eggs also contain a vitamin, B12. One egg has ½ of the B12 that we need per day. Eggs are good for our health, though they can be unhealthy for us if they aren’t cooked properly because of bacteria like Salmonella. There has never been a problem with our eggs in NZ. Eggs only last for 21 days if not refrigerated and all packages have to have an expiry date.

Cooking Methods

Most New Zealanders prefer their eggs poached. Some like them scrambled and a few like them fried. These are the common ways to cook eggs but there are different ways to cook them because eggs are in a lot of products that we use for everyday cooking.

Conclusion

We could say that the way we treat the chickens is cruel but thankfully, New Zealand is banning the idea of caged hens so we will all be eating only free range eggs one day and there will be no looking back.