Green Daily

One of my biggest interests, and one of the biggest topics I bring to the table at GreenDaily is a way to live a more sustainable life through raising your own food free of hormones and chemicals. This includes vegetables and animals, but mainly chickens. This series is an on-going introduction to the wonderful world of raising chickens in a non-rural environment.

Something you may not think of when planning your new suburban chicken farm is what to do with all those eggs! With me, it was a problem I postponed contemplating because I just wanted to raise some chickens, but it can become a serious problem unless you have a plan.

Since all eggs (free-range or cage-raised) have the same amount of cholesterol (around 70% of your daily recommended allowance for each egg!), it's safe to say you won't be eating dozens of eggs every day. But luckily, the demand for free-range organic naturally-raised eggs is growing every day.

The most obvious recommendation is to sell them at a local farmer's market. You may have competition, so scope out the setting first, but it's certainly a viable option. Another option is a local rural flea market. There's one about 15 minutes from my home, and every weekend, there are plenty of people selling their chickens' eggs, with the demand far outweighing the supply. Most farmers sell their free range eggs at around 4-6 dollars a dozen. I've even seen some people bring photo albums of their chickens, showing the wonderful living conditions they enjoy each day. This is simply a form of advertising that helps your credibility. If you love your chickens and treat them well, people will respect that and pay a little more for your eggs.

One option I found myself doing a few years ago was trading the eggs to my neighbor. At the time, my yard was entirely covered in trees and growing a proper garden was a losing battle, but his yard was still fairly sunny. So his garden flourished! I ended up trading him a few dozen eggs for a box of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, onions, etc. Now that I grow my own vegetables, we're working on a plan to coordinate what we grow and trade that way.

You'd be surprised how many people are willing to buy your eggs by the dozen. Ask around with the people at work, school, church or any social gathering. If nothing else, it might be a good way to make the money back from your feed, to make raising chickens a virtually free hobby!

Next week's installment of this series will be the final one on chickens, and The Suburban Farmer will move on to other gardening and urban farming topics. The final chicken topic will be "Extending your animal army". I'll let you know what other animals typically get along best with chickens and how you can find out more information.