10 Big Reasons to Choose Farm Fresh Eggs Over Store-Bought Every Time
1. Happy Hens! Hens that live on our small farm are happy and healthy. I can’t speak for every small farm, but I would bet this holds true in most cases. Our hens have names, best friends, and favorite nesting boxes. They play games, are free to wander where they please, scratch at the ground, find bugs, and live their best chicken lives. In contrast, the conditions hens are kept in at factory farms is heart-breaking. The practices that are the norm should be illegal. I won’t describe them here because it is too upsetting, but I expect a quick google search would convince you to never give another dime to support the commercial egg industry. In fact, this reason alone was enough to keep me from ever eating another store bought egg.
Olivia holding Adelle, a Welsummer hen.
2. Health benefits! There have been numerous studies comparing the nutritional value of commercial factory farm-produced eggs and eggs laid by hens who live in a traditional small farm environment. The results are pretty amazing. Eggs laid by hens allowed free access to sunshine, exercise, and a variety of foods have far superior nutritional benefits including: less saturated fat, half of the cholesterol, 400% more omega 3s, 62% more vitamin A, 220% more vitamin E, 500% more beta carotene, and higher levels of carotenoids. Convinced yet?
The Welsummers Enjoying a Beautiful Morning!
3. Small farm eggs taste better. I didn’t believe this until I tried it for myself, but I promise it’s true. The eggs our hens lay here at Heritage Springs taste so much better than store bought eggs. The flavor is rich and even the texture is better. In comparison, store bought eggs are watery and bland. Don’t take my word for it- try them for yourself and see what I mean.
Blue, Green, Chocolate, Speckled, and Blush Colored Eggs
4. No drug residue. The hens at Heritage Springs have never been given antibiotics. Because factory farms house their hens in such poor conditions, their flocks are regularly given antibiotics as standard protocol. These antibiotics make their way into the eggs which means Americans are unknowingly consuming eggs with drug residue in them. Our hens are kept in clean, spacious living conditions. They are given apple cider vinegar and oregano oil in their water to boost their immunity and prevent disease. If our flock ever were to get sick and need antibiotics, we would certainly treat them, but we would not sell their eggs while they had antibiotics in their systems.
Flower Strikes a Pose!
5. Salmonella is a minimal concern. The risk of salmonella is significantly less from eggs laid on a small farm than from factory farm-produced eggs. Hens on small farms are not as prone to getting the disease for a few reasons. I’ve already highlighted the difference in living conditions. Naturally, disease spreads quickly through flocks when hens are crammed together in cages or packed into a hoop house. The biggest factor though is due to the source of salmonella. Salmonella is commonly spread by rodent droppings and rodents run rampant at factory farms. At Heritage Springs, Catniss the Mighty Huntress takes care of the rodents, so they are not a problem. Again, I can’t speak for all small farms, but I have never been to a small farm where I didn’t see a barn cat snoozing in the hay feeder or purring up at me for some attention. On small farms, I expect the credit for the incredibly low salmonella risk is due to the well-fed feline farm hands.
Catniss the Mighty Huntress Lounging in the Hay
6. Farm fresh eggs are fresh! There are varying thoughts on how old eggs are when you buy them from the grocery store. It is reasonable to assume that the freshness depends on how close the grocery store is to the source of the eggs, and how fast the grocery store sells the eggs. It is safe to assume the freshest eggs you will get at the store are around a week old, but it is not uncommon for eggs at the store to be a month old before you buy them. At Heritage Springs, eggs are gathered twice a day, and it is not uncommon for us to sell eggs that are so fresh they are still warm from being under a hen!
Ruby Crowing
7. The planet will thank you! Eating eggs from a small farm is better for the planet in more ways than one. The most obvious reason is that eating eggs from a local farm cuts down on transportation emissions. This alone is huge, but there’s more to it. The chickens at Heritage Springs eat well. In addition to their organic, non-GMO, soy-free chicken food especially formulated for laying hens, they enjoy a wide range of kitchen scraps. Kitchen scraps that would otherwise end up in the trash and be taken to the landfill where they would emit ethylene gas for the next 50 years while they decomposed. No kidding- it takes that long. I never thought about throwing out food waste before because I assumed it broke down quickly and just wasn’t a big deal. I had no idea how detrimental it was to the earth. Now that we have chickens, our household food waste is virtually zero. Chickens are omnivores and they truly eat everything. Banana peels, unfinished dinners, spoiled yogurt, and cheese rinds are delicacies our lucky chickens pounce on with delight. Feed chickens not landfills!
Neil Holding Buttercup
8. It’s good for the economy! Buying eggs from a small farm near you goes a long way to building a strong economy in your community. Studies show that buying from a small local business is twice as effective at increasing the “velocity of money” (how quickly money changes hands) as buying from a large chain business. I am not an economic expert, but the basic idea is that the higher the velocity of money is the greater the number of people that can benefit from that money because the money has been owned and used by more people. That’s the gist, but it might be worth a google search to read articles written by people smarter than me if you want to really understand this topic in depth.
We Sold Eggs and Honey along with Paw Paws at the Paw Paw Porch Pop Up Sale in September!
9. You can connect to your food! Where does your food come from? I might be able to tell you that I bought a box of cereal from a specific grocery store, but I would have no idea how it got there. What farm grew the wheat? What kind of pesticides or chemicals did the farmer use on the crop? How far from the farm was the cereal factory? Is the factory management kind to the employees? Is the factory clean? How much sugar is added to the wheat to make the cereal? What is the packaging made of? Where does that come from? There are a LOT of holes in our knowledge about most of the food we consume. If I didn’t grow it myself or buy it from one of the small farms I like to shop at, I can’t answer any of these questions. Can you? Only a few generations ago, most people knew where their food came from. They either produced it themselves or they knew the farmers they bought from or traded for it with. If we all bought the majority of our food from local farms and people we knew I think we would be healthier and probably eat more delicious food. We don’t raise our own meat, but I like to buy meat from farms where I can see the animals being treated kindly and living in clean conditions. When people come to buy eggs from our farm, I love to show off our flock. Factory farms do not allow visitors, and I don’t think anyone would want to see what they are doing even if they did.
The Coop Decorated for Christmas
10. No chemicals! It’s a law in the United States that eggs sold in grocery stores be washed. This seems like a good idea except that washing eggs removes the protective coatings from the shells which keep bacteria out. Washing eggs encourages them to spoil faster too because the protective coating is gone. There are different ways companies wash their eggs, but often they use diluted bleach. With the protective coating gone, the bleach can make its way through the shell and end up in your eggs. The eggs we sell at Heritage Springs are left unwashed to keep them fresh for as long as possible. It is recommended you wash your eggs prior to use, but since you are doing it yourself, you have control over what you wash your eggs with. I like to use a drop of natural dish soap and a gentle brush. I do not recommend you use bleach.
Eggs from the Buff Orpington Hens
