That is Just Egg-Tastic

Our little farm venture was started on our egg business. Before we started selling our eggs our first 25 hens were producing more eggs than we could eat. When friends and family came over the rule was they couldn't leave unless they took AT LEAST a dozen eggs with them.

This is a pretty entertaining concept now, since we barely eat our own eggs due to demand. After our first summer selling at local farmer's markets and aquiring more hens to up production, we started looking for an outlet to sell our eggs during the off season. We stopped into a wonderful little farm where we used to live that has a store on site. They agreed to sell out eggs for us. Usually most of our eggs sold, and during early spring when our hens were at the height of production there was a surpluss of eggs that were not moving. Once the farm's CSA program started and people were in the store every weekend, all bets were off. Apparently our eggs have become the favorite and people will actually call ahead to see if they are available. We do our weekly delivery every Saturday morning and usually all of the eggs are sold by Sunday.
We did order a bunch of baby chicks in the spring to up production more, but due to a lot of bad luck we didnt end up with as many hens as we would have liked. Apparently every raccoon and mink in the area puts out a bulletin when we release pullets into the coop. One night a mink wiped out 48 pullets. And for those of you thinking "just trap the mink" I say you are welcome to come out here and try!

Anyway, this wonderful store that sells our eggs has been so helpful to us, but cannot seem to understand what is invloved in free range farming. I could pen up my hens in little battery cages and slaughter them after a year when they no longer produce at top levels. But i refuse. So as a result my girls have a trade off. They get to be outside and act like the chickens they are, but that also makes them prone to becoming pray.

I understand that we as a society have been so far removed from our food sources that the majority of us no longer even understand the basics. But i really feel that if you choose to work with farmers and sell their products perhaps you can make more of an effort to learn what their job entails. Just a thought. Ok, thats my rant for today.

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