Our first brood of hens started laying eggs a few weeks ago, and we're now collecting about a dozen a day. Since our hens are free-rangers collecting eggs is more like an Easter egg hunt every time. Fortunately, about half the girls use the nest boxes in the coop while the others have found some interesting places in the barn and shop to lay. It keeps us on our toes.
Hens typically start out laying smaller than normal eggs before they become full sized, so the first several dozen we handed out as gifts. Now we're selling all our excess for $3 a dozen, so let us know if you'd like some eggs and we'll work you into the Egg Train.
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| Actual Eggs from our Chickens |
So about the quality
of our eggs…first, we’re not in the egg production business rather just a small
homestead and are really selling eggs because we have an excess and happen to
love raising chickens. If you’ve seen any of the pics we've shared then
you might suspect we love chickens too much… We’re not organic
certified and we do feed our hens cracked corn (some people are completely
against feeding chickens corn and soy, but corn is actually really important
for chickens for the carbs to stay warm over winter). We buy our feed
from a local family owned feed store in Springfield, McKenzie Feed, or at the
Wilco Farm Coop. We don’t always buy GMO free labeled feed, only when on
sale. Typically we buy Scratch and Peck Feeds or Purina Organic, or CHS
Payback layer crumble. Our chickens are only given free choice for oyster
shell and grit. The oyster shell is important for the calcium they use
creating those shells. Grains are only fed in small quantities twice a
day, once in the morning when chickens are turned out to free range and once in
evening when secured in coop for their protection from predators at night.
About 80% of our chicken’s diet is from free-ranging, they forage on their
own. That means our eggs are smaller, you won’t see XL eggs in our
cartons…just won’t happen. We also don't wash our eggs and we have roosters in our flock -- All Nat-ur-al.
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| Sign Posted in Work Lunch Room |
So I noticed on top of
a carton of organic certified eggs that someone shared with me, they (the brand) brag about
their free range chickens having 21.8 square feet of outdoor space to free
range in…wow, a full whopping 2’ x 10.5’ chicken run! Honestly, that’s
not free range and those chickens are getting their food entirely from pellets. By
comparison our hens have 46,000 sq ft of free range space per hen, but they
actually don’t range further than about 5,100 sq ft/per hen, of space.
I’m also building a mobile coop now so we can move the girls between pastures so they
don’t focus on the bugs in just one area. It's part of our pasture management plan.
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| Organic Certified with 21.8 sq ft of Outside Open Space |
Happy Chickens!
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