Farm Fresh Eggs
I like to think chickens just kind of appeared here on the farm one day, but if I am being honest… they were sort of an impulse purchase. We had been planning on bringing chickens to the farm, and were just so excited to welcome these little fluffy chicks! There has been a steep learning curve, but owning chickens has been a wonderful experience for us, especially when it comes to their eggs.
When we first started talking about adding chickens to our little farm, we had a few criteria we had been told to consider based on our research. Due to our location in Northern Illinois we wanted our chickens to be cold hardy and able to withstand our winter temps. We also wanted hens (females) and no roosters (males) as we weren’t planning on breeding or adding more chicks at the time. The last criteria was egg color. We knew we wanted a variety of eggs, sizes and colors in our coop every day. Chickens are similar to dogs in the fact that they have specific breeds. Certain breeds of chickens provide certain egg colors. Within that spectrum chickens also offer the uniqueness of having eggs that are sometimes speckled with little abstract dots, or colored rich deep shades due to their ‘bloom’. The ‘bloom’ is an invisible coating that the chicken automatically produces on the egg as a built in barrier against air, and dirt. This bloom protects the egg, and keeps it fresh without the need for refrigeration.
As someone who grew up eating refrigerated eggs from the grocery store, learning all about the amazing bloom of a chicken egg was incredible! After you collect your chicken eggs you can brush off any light dirt or grass and put the eggs on your counter in a safe place. Don’t wash them. When you wash the egg, you are essentially removing the bloom. This allows air and dirt to penetrate the shell, and this is why we generally refrigerate eggs. Large scale commercial egg providers remove the bloom by washing their eggs before selling them to you in the grocery store.
As we followed the journey of the bloom it led us to commercially produced eggs, and we learned about the shelf life of the standard market egg. We were in shock when we learned eggs in your local grocery store are most likely a month and a half to two months old when you buy them!!! TWO MONTHS. We couldn’t believe it. There is a such a balance of being grateful of a constant food supply and how helpful that is to so many, while also wishing the food chain could be offering more people truly fresh eggs. Our chickens and their eggs are such blessing to us here on our farm. We enjoy having them as farm companions, and providers of delicious organic colorful eggs. We currently share our eggs with friends and family, and neighbors. We highly recommend seeking out local sources of eggs in your area. This could be from a neighbor, local farm or farmers market. Supporting smaller farms and building those relationships will always bring you closer to your food and where it’s grown.