Egg Poll

Daryl Mast
May 24, 2024
Comments

Eggs…what color do you prefer?

Ok, so the topic of eggs is very broad. We could talk farm fresh eggs vs. grocery store eggs. Duck eggs vs. chicken eggs. Cooked vs. raw. Or even washed vs. unwashed. But today, I’d like to ask for feedback on color. More specifically, the color of the shell on chicken eggs.

My personal ‘egg journey’, if there is such a thing, probably began when I was young. Possibly 40 years ago. While I grew up on a Lancaster County dairy farm, we also had a few other animals. Goats, ducks, a lamb, and even a few horses. But we also had some chickens. Maybe a dozen or so, enough to keep our family in eggs. As I remember, it was my job to feed the chickens and gather the eggs. A good job for a young lad. I remember my mother, sending me out to the chicken house with a small bucket of garbage. Kitchen scraps that accumulated over the past 24 hours were a daily treat for our chickens. I also recollect that most, if not all, of the eggs I was charged to gather…were brown eggs. There may have been a few white ones too, but brown is what I remember.

Fastforward 40 years…

We, Party of Seven Farm, purchased our first laying hens in the fall of 2023. Hens typically begin laying eggs around 20-24 weeks of age. In the first few weeks, the eggs are small and there are many ‘double yolkers’. After several weeks the size of the eggs increases until they reach their ‘normal’ size.

The first few months that we had eggs, they were small and we didn’t have a steady market to sell the eggs. We moved a few through our small farm stand and we gave many eggs away to family, friends, and folks at church. There was one incident at church that fascinated my simple mind. You see, we had been taking many dozen eggs to church on a Sunday morning. Eggs that were free for the taking. Several weeks in, I had a conversation with a lady who was probably nearly 80 years old. She thanked me for the eggs, but jokingly said that only she would eat the eggs and her husband would not. He was an egg eater, but he would only eat white eggs. We only had brown eggs. This got me thinking, is this really a thing? Are there people out there that will only eat white eggs? At Doorstep Dairy, white eggs always outsell brown eggs. I thought it was because they were cheaper. But in this case, the brown eggs were free.

I have a self-serving reason for the question

That flock of hens we purchased last fall are all brown laying hens. In January we added these brown eggs to the Doorstep menu. Between Doorstep Dairy and our small farm stand, we have been selling out nearly every week. If you have been purchasing our eggs…thank you!

In January of this year, we also bought nearly 700 day-old chicks. We intended to raise them to about 20 weeks of age and sell some to backyard chicken lovers as well as add some to our laying flock. A majority of these young birds have found their way into backyards all over the region. Those 700 chicks that we purchased were broken down into 4 different breeds that lay a variety of colors. Multiple shades of blue, green, pink, and brown.

In the words of William Cowper, “Variety is the spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.”

We intended to mix a few of these colored eggs into our brown eggs to give some ‘variety’. We have begun doing this with a few of our dozens over the past few weeks.

So in my ‘poll,’ I’d like to hear your feedback to the items below. I can promise that we will not please everyone, but I’d love to see if there are any suggestions or preferences that are more popular than others.

When I purchase a dozen ‘Brown’ eggs, I expect 12 brown eggs.
I would love to see a mix of colors in my carton, including brown.
I suggest you sell brown eggs and mixed-colored eggs separately.
Please add pastured white eggs to your menu.

Lastly, just a note on diet and animal husbandry.

Our girls have been housed inside over the winter. Now that the weather is warm and the grass is plentiful…the hens are on pasture. They are moved daily to fresh grass. In addition, they are fed a non-GMO feed. The eggs are washed and unclassified. Unclassified just means that each carton may contain a variety of sizes (ie. medium, large, and extra large)