CHICKEN OR EGG?: EGGMOBILE AT WORK - In repose, while providing shelter.

CHICKEN OR EGG?

EGGMOBILE AT WORK -

In repose, while providing shelter.

Here are our 50 new Australarp laying hens, learning about: grass, bugs in the ground, plankways, laying of eggs, and their new home - this handsome eggmobile. The hens are "pullets", so their eggs start out small, but grow in size daily. We close the hens into their shelter at dusk, to protect from nocturnal predators. But the first evening, they all congregated under the eggmobile instead of inside it. A valiant effort from Kathy, our neighbor, trained them to seek nightly refuge inside, and they have been faultless since. They are fed a non-gmo grain ration to supplement pasture. Over the past two weeks, we have been enjoying the growing bounty of our new flock on the farm, and hope you will too.

So, we now have pastured eggs for sale! We are printing a label, and all should be ready to go by this weekend. Supply is still limited, but soon we should be producing 3 - 4 dozen a day. We will bring a batch to the Farmers Market this Sunday for a test run. Price will be $5/dozen.

This past Thursday we harvested pastured chickens at the nearby farm of the Zimmerman family. Their entire, large family was involved, and it was a long, rewarding day. They processed the chickens, while Kathy and I removed chickens from the chill-tank, placed them into plastic bags, put them into the cooler in the back of my truck, ferried them to our farm, where we weighed, labeled, vacuum-packaged, and then froze them. Now we have 115 pastured chickens to sell. Depending on level of interest, a second batch will be coming this fall. By next year, we should have a steady and more abundant supply.

For some reason, HPFM frowns on our selling poultry at the market, but let's try it on a limited basis to see how it goes. We will bring a cooler-full this week. As a variation on the theme, you can always order eggs and chicken on-line through our website: www.grassrootsfoods.biz, and we will deliver it to you at Hyde Park Square on Sundays or at Ault Park on periodic Wednesdays. One way or another, we will deliver these products to you, if you are interested.

So, which comes first - the chicken or the egg? We have thought about this a lot and still can't figure it out... But we do know we now have both, as we strive to broaden our products to enhance your lives.