If you’re already a chicken owner, you might be aware that chickens often serve as a ‘gateway’ animal. The easy success and great delight of raising chickens can cause enthusiasm for other backyard ‘livestock’ such as goats, rabbits, ducks, and bees.
It’s just too fun and addictive raising your own food (especially in the city where it doesn’t take 15 hours a day to do it)!
Lately, I’ve been thinking of ducks. Ducks are noisier than chickens. They’re also messier and they like to have their own swimming pool (which seems a bit snooty compared to the humble chickens). But in return, there’s the promise of eggs. Bigger eggs than chickens lay.
This week I was given a farm fresh duck egg to try. (Because, of course, duck owners are like chicken owners and once they catch the bug, they become enthusiastic animal pushers, trying to talk you into some of your own…I know this because I’m guilty of it myself. I think EVERYONE should own chickens!)
The only appropriate thing to do with one duck egg is to perform a taste test against a chicken egg.
First, you’ll notice the duck egg (on right) is slightly larger than the chicken egg.
And the yolk is HUGE. And very yellow (making my free range chicken egg look very pale in comparison).
And taste? Honestly, it tasted like a yolk-ier chicken egg. Delicious. For people who love the yolk of an egg, a duck egg is definitely going to be the egg of choice.
I was curious to see how the duck egg measures up to the chicken egg in terms of nutrients. I decided it’s kind of a toss-up. The duck egg has more calories (130) than a chicken egg (80) and more fat (9.6 instead of 5) and cholesterol (619 verses 185).
But duck eggs also give you 9 g of protein (compared to 6 from chickens) and an additional 6 times more vitamin D, 2 times more vitamin A and more of vitamin K and other nutrients.
Duck eggs also give you 158% of your daily needed vitamin B12, 26% of your pantothenic acid, 22% of your riboflavin, 15% of your Vitamin A, 14% of your folate, 10% of your vitamin B6 and 15% your iron.
So what’s the verdict for me? Well, I didn’t really need any convincing. When I was a kid, I actually favored my ducks over the chickens. Now that I’ve fallen so in love with chickens as an adult, however, I can’t imagine ducks moving into first place…but I guess we’ll have to wait and see…as soon as I have time to build a duck pen, that is.
