I meant to add in the last post that I'd been productive this weekend and pickled two jars of eggs.  My little bantam lays lovely eggs with a pale cream shell and very pointed at one end. - a totally different shape to the eggs the others lay. She is one of the two females that we hatched at school last year and is a lovely natured bird.  Very inquisitive and friendly. I can trust her enough to let her out for a run round the garden because I always know that she will come back to her run when the time is up. So I thought I'd do something with her eggs rather than just using them up two at a time which always feels a bit wrong after all her efforts.  Two weigh about 95 -100g so are way more than one normal egg.  I use three of them to replace two normal eggs if I am cooking/baking. My husband loves pork pie with his salad for lunch in the summer holidays and I'm not at all keen so I can have an egg now.  I do hope that I like pickled eggs : )

I used the recipe from the Simple Green Frugal Coop:

http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/pickled-eggs-and-be-prepared-challenge.html

This one sounds milder than many recipes I've looked at.  I didn't like the sound of some of the highly spiced reciped that I found. It is economical to prepare because you can boil all the eggs at once and then use them as you want.  I asked on other forums (sp - should that be fora??) about keeping times once opened and the answer seemed to be months because of the vinegar.  I doubt that will be a problem, though, but it is good to know these things.