Pastured soy free duck eggs vs pastured soy free chicken eggs

[LePatron7]

Hi everyone. The farm I get food from has duck eggs and chicken eggs, both pastured and fed scraps like raw pork and beef. The chicken eggs are fertile, I'm not sure about the duck eggs.

Would you guys consider the duck eggs a better choice for eating raw? They're a little more expensive.

What are your opinions?

[Polyvore]

Eat both, but I would prefer duck because they eat algae, and generally animal matter coming from an 'aquatic food source' has better nutrients than animals fed grain.

Check out some of the chicken threads we have had lately, we all agree that chickens should be fed grass fed meat and insects, but they are usually fed grain (even when they are pastured).

Find out whether the ducks are given much grain or if they mostly eat pond-matter, and compare it to the chickens, then you will know if picking duck over chicken often is worth it.

[Dorothy]

The most important thing to find out is what breed the ducks are! If they are muscovy - don't. They are big fat birds and hate to forage and will only eat a bug if it walks in front of its nose. Also - do the ducks even have a pond? Not all ducks do you know.

Pastured can also mean a whole continuum of things. Find out how many chickens over how much land. Some farmers say pastured when the chickens don't even have a blade of grass left on the "pasture".

Duck eggs in general are much richer - higher fat content in the yolk. Some breed of duck eggs I LOVE and some I hate mostly because of how much feed they eat -- and generally I can't stand raw eggs where the chickens are fed chicken feed at all any more. I've been totally spoiled!

My suggestion is to trust your sense of taste. Try them both and see which one tastes and feels better to you. If there are mix of different breeds with different color eggs - make sure you evaluate each breeds eggs separately.

 

[jessica]

oo duck eggs.....totally yum.  definitely very different tasting yolk depending on diet.  i had some feeding from a really salty pond full of algae and their yolks were extremely sulphuric, same with wild mallard eggs.  just dont get too paranoid and abstain from eating food that is good quality just not the most superb perfectly most pure paleo thing ever.  not g oing to happen at this time on earth

[Dorothy]

I know this isn't really paleo - but duck yolks with some white makes the best puddings! Can't do that with chicken eggs.

Believe it or not, my chickens' yolks are just as rich as the duck eggs I've been able to get just because of how I feed them.

After seeing that farm you have access to looks like probably anything they offer is going to be good. luuuuckeeee!

[DanielM]

    Pastured is not the same as grass-fed. Neither chicken nor pigs are vegetarians - neither should be "grass fed" - they are food vacuum cleaners, eating anything and everything.

[Dorothy]

    Pastured is not the same as grass-fed. Neither chicken nor pigs are vegetarians - neither should be "grass fed" - they are food vacuum cleaners, eating anything and everything.

What you have written here Daniel is the general accepted "knowledge" but quite untrue in reality. Chickens like humans and goats will eat "anything" if they are starving - but chickens will always eat what the best foods they can when available. If chickens are fed all the raw meat, organs and bugs they want - they will only want to eat some grass and weeds and the occasional seed along with it. My chickens will turn up their noses to things that most people consider to be really good for them because I try to give them as much of the foods that they want and the foods that make them keep on producing even into old age. Most chickens stop producing at an early age even though a chicken has enough ovum to produce eggs into it's 20's. I've realized that it is only because of malnutrition that this happens. If a chicken is give enough high protein, high mineral, high enzyme and high bacteria foods - they simply do not stop laying eggs no matter how old they get and don't get sick.

It's a lot like us eating a paleo diet. People can survive kind of ok on regular diets - but without excellent raw paleo diets we just don't flourish. It's pretty much the same with chickens.

Grass-fed is a very good term for the kind of chickens and eggs we here would want to eat! Chickens indeed eat grass and need it along with other wild weeds for the carotenoids. If they have grass then they also have bugs and other little critters to eat - which is vitally important to their health. These are their raw paleo foods! The other things humans feed them are like the SAD diets of humans. As raw paleos we want to get the closest thing to raw paleo chickens to eat the eggs of - and those are grass-fed. Pastured on the other hand can mean a thousand chickens on a small plot without one leaf of grass or one bug left - or with just a few of the chickens being allowed to touch foot on ground.

All these words can be manipulated - but at the moment grass-fed is being used in a way that best reflects what we as raw paleos would want - but there really is no substitution for going to the farm and seeing for yourself!

[Chris]

Hi everyone. The farm I get food from has duck eggs and chicken eggs, both pastured and fed scraps like raw pork and beef. The chicken eggs are fertile, I'm not sure about the duck eggs.

Would you guys consider the duck eggs a better choice for eating raw? They're a little more expensive.

What are your opinions?

They're both fine! Like Dorothy said, Duck eggs are richer and fattier. There bigger! As long as they are Pastured your good! Enjoy! Don't worry if one is better than the other. Just eat them  (Raw of Course)! Anything is better than REGULAR grain feed eggs. That's all you have to remember!