Thursday, March 29, 2012

Wednesday is "Egg Day" Around Here

If you enjoy collecting chickens like Imelda Marcos enjoyed collecting shoes, then you might have quite a supply of eggs every week. When you come to the realization that your family is sick of egg salad sandwiches and Easter really does come but one time a year, it is time to sell some eggs.

When my fridge was filling with eggs, I started passing fliers around the neighborhood to sell the excess. Also, I put the word out with friends and folks that have bought locker beef from us. Now I sell about 10 dozen a week and the birds are definitely paying for their feed.

Wednesday is "Egg Day" around here. All the eggs get washed in an organic egg wash, dried and placed in cartons. I have labels on the egg cartons that have my name, phone number and stating that they are "Non-Graded Eggs". Also included is a label kindly asking for the cartons to be returned to me and that carton donations are always welcomed.

Want to hear my only egg carton story? I had one of my egg customers who was attending a funeral wake in the home of an old rancher and he noticed a huge stack of egg cartons in the kitchen and asked if he could have them to give to me! The family said that was just fine and he couldn't wait to bring me this stack of about a hundred cartons and tell me how he got them! I hope the probate lawyers didn't find out! ;)

Unlike a big commercial operation, where they can sort the eggs into medium, large and extra -large, I just make sure that the eggs of various sizes get evenly distributed amongst the cartons. A large egg is supposed to be 2 ounces so I try to have an average that distributes around that 2 oz size or better. I never use eggs smaller than 1.85 oz (yes, I check the smaller ones with a digital scale!) and I have no limit on how large of egg I will include. Customers love getting those big double-yolkers, too. Customers also love getting a good variety of color which I try my best to do.

With everyone seemingly to want to eat "local" nowadays, there is no shortage of folks to buy our eggs. Fliers, word of mouth and Craigslist are all good places to find buyers for your eggs if you find yourself with an abundance of eggs.

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