It seems that the 5th largest egg supplier in the US was slapped with a warning from the FDA for 13 violations of the new egg regulations.
McDonald’s fired them, since there were violations, but how long were they in violation prior to the warning issued by the FDA? How many egg sandwiches were sold before the change in suppliers occurred?
Another reason we should all know who supplies us our daily diet!
Read the story here:
McDonald’s Dumps McMuffin Egg Factory Over Health Concerns – ABC News.
With a background in electronics, computer hardware, software, and networking, I have developed a knack for troubleshoot things. Sometimes, on the farm – it isn’t quite that easy.
Dealing with “electrically alive” systems is NOT the same as dealing with “biologically alive” systems. There are some things I just don’t know, or understand about the biological systems – but then, I might add, neither do the geneticists that insist on tampering with the natural rhythm of life on this planet and destroying natural species of plant and animal – or modifying them without fully considering the repercussions of those alterations – but… I’m walking down a bunny trail here.
The “system” in this case is the chicken, and the issue is the mysterious loss of eggs. Eggs from our 70+ hens. Normal output is approximately 4 dozen of these little golden treasures on any given day.
We have had chickens for about 3 years now, and they don’t seem to be a mystery to us any longer – or should I say, they didn’t seem to be a mystery. We have read numerous books, done research on the web, and of course – we have at least 3 years of experience…
We have had lapses in laying in the summer due to weather changes, or stress ( like when the boys forget to water them in the middle of summer and it’s 90 degrees outside), or because of the decrease of light-hours per day. But I must admit, that all my troubleshooting prowess had failed me miserably on this issue.
We were missing eggs!! No, the farm dogs didn’t get them and no animals got them – there were no telltale signs.. .like the cracked pieces of shells left over. Plus, when a varmint gets eggs, they usually like them so much… they come back for the layer!
Anyway, the chickens had been down in production for about 2 weeks. I did notice that there were a lot of feathers around – more than usual – but I didn’t put 2 + 2 together. I had sent the boys on an egg hunt – to the hay barn, out in the fallow pasture where there are tall grass and some weeds – all of the places that chickens like to hide eggs ( but where we always find them).
It wasn’t until I received an email this morning from my lovely wife that everything came back into perspective – the chickens were molting!
Well, of course they were! I had read up on this phenomena; once a year, they will lose all of the feathers and replenish them. A new coat – and it takes all of their energy to manufacture it. We had this happen 2 summers ago, but it was not to this extent – not all hens molted, and it was in summer. We are in the middle of an out-and-out revolt! I mean “remolt“! It seems that this year, all 70+ hens decided to molt at the same time!!!
Well, I have to explain this to our customers who have been very happy with egg delivery – until the last 2 weeks. And I have to tell them that it could last a couple of weeks longer.
I guess once you get over 50 – the first troubleshooting step should be to make sure your own memory system is functioning normally before attempting to troubleshoot any other type of system. And if it’s a biological system – all bets are off…
Pat