Eggidemic?

Reason #5

It seems as if eggs have made big news lately. I was late to the party, as I don't buy eggs  or watch the news. Inevitably though, I happen to spend time with people who do, and thus become more informed. So it seems salmonella laced eggs are the weight loss plan du jour. All that effluvium leads to a greatly shrunken mass. True, that once you get reconstituted with fluids and get enough antibiotics to kill the buggers you regain your former figure, but still- temporary gauntness does ensue. Unless you're one of the desperately unlucky few whom actually cannot be reconstituted. Then, that is really bad business.
For this reason, amongst others, you may want to hunt down a local, small farm egg producer (like me!) Cowfeathers Eggs is the name of my youngest's business. He sells them for $2.00/ dozen. He started pricing them at $3.00/dozen, but couldn't sell enough to keep up with supply. This may have to do with his business being a bit of a secret. Of course when your bottom line is in negative numbers, it is hard to justify money for advertising.
Reason #2 for buying locally produced eggs from a small farm? Taste. Fresh eggs are amazingly different from the store bought variety. The yolks are deep yellowish orange and stand up right off the white. They whip up into a creamy souffle effortlessly, what I have for breakfast most mornings. I just crack an egg, hand whip it and pour it into the pan. I then add veggies, brown rice, pesto, hummus, whatever eggcellent idea I have, and voila! Perfection. You'll never eat store bought eggs again without remembering what a real egg tastes like.
Reason #3 ....happy chickens do make better eggs. Our chickens are what is deemed "Pasture Fed". See, first there were "Eggs". Then, folks weren't really pleased with the idea of stacking chickens in shoe boxes on top of one another to be little egg laying machines for the duration of their shortened lives. So, they designated "Free Range", by definition having access to the outdoors. This was easily manipulated to opening the end of the layer building, screening it and labeling the eggs "Free Range". Hmmm. So, they designated "Cage Free".... so they let the 30,000 chickens out of the cages to stand on the floor of the chicken house. There just is no way to produce eggs for the price most America wants to pay, and have the chickens live a nice existence. So, here we are with "Pasture Fed". This means they spend a significant period of each day running around outside, chasing bugs, avoiding the rooster, and living a reasonably protected chicken life . (Chickens are pictured in the dictionary next to the word "vulnerable", everything likes chicken.)
A few years ago, my middle child decided to do a little study on her chickens and their egg laying atmosphere. She split the flock in two. One group she kept confined to a small part of the house, indoors, no access to outside. Now, true, they had plenty of room, and perches and stuff to do, but not their usual activity. The other half got to go out and scratch, and give themselves a dust bath, get jumped by the rooster, etc. This went on for 14 days. During this time the number of eggs and weight of each egg was recorded for the two groups. Statistically, the group that went outside laid more eggs, and they were slightly heavier. Then, after 14 days she switched the two. That got interesting. The newly confined group almost quit laying altogether, and the newly free group laid 75% more than they had during their two weeks of confinement. Happier? Maybe, but certainly more prolific.
Now, since it takes about 26 hours for a hen to create an egg, she can lay, oh, about 5 a week.
That would be about 260 eggs per chicken per year.
We have about 30 chickens (it varies a bit year to year, but 30 is average).
That brings me to Reason #4 to buy your eggs from a local small farm.

The day's take, from a while back, but what made this day special, besides the variety- including goose and duck eggs, was the circus freaks. The teeny tiny green Ameraucana egg on the left above the salt cellar, and the one farther left that was a white shelled egg, then mostly encapsulated in a second, brown shell. Never did figure out how that happened.

If you've already done the math, yes that is right, 7800 eggs a year.

With 5 people in the family that is 1560 eggs per person, but my middle child only eats them certain ways and misses most of the egg eating, so we'll say closer to 1800 eggs per person.

That would be 5 eggs a day. Every day. I love my eggs, but I can't eat that many. No way. So, Reason #4 is  my fridge is full.
And, lastly, Reason #5? They're pretty!