Farmer Thoughts

Contributed by Farmer Becca, Bottomland Farm —

Never in my life did I think that eggs, plain ol’ eggs, would become such a large part of my daily discourse. These days, eggs are in the headlines, a regular topic of discussion among friends and family, and of course, a large part of my daily life as a farmer with five hundred laying hens.

I asked my parents the other day if we ate eggs much as kids (I never remember having more than a dozen or two in our fridge at a time). My mom didn’t really remember, but then again, I guess eggs weren’t such a big deal in the Pittsburgh suburbs in the 80s.

When I was in first grade, we hatched out chicks in an incubator in our classroom. It was one of those styrofoam box-shaped incubators with a clear panel on top, and it sat on an empty desk in the very front center of the classroom. We took turns carefully turning the eggs each day and waited (as patiently as first graders do) for the chicks to hatch.

Just prior to hatching, our teacher told our class that if our parents gave permission, we could be the proud new owners of some laying hens (or roosters, I guess). At the time, backyard chickens hadn’t yet made their comeback; they were for farms and homesteads only, not for suburban neighborhoods.

Much to my parents’ relief, our town zoning required that someone have a quarter-acre lot in order to keep chickens, which we did not, so those first-grade chickens went home with someone else. I, however, never gave up hope.

It wasn’t until years later, when my life was in a bit of an upheaval and I had just moved to Central New York, that I was finally able to fulfill my chicken-keeping dreams. My parents had also just moved to central New York, and somehow, 25 years after my initial chicken request, I convinced them that having chickens in their semi-suburban backyard would be the perfect addition to my life and theirs.

The tides of backyard chicken keeping had shifted, and suddenly it was socially acceptable (and even in some circles the “in thing” to do). After my dad and I converted an old shed into a chicken coop, I purchased nine chicks, and my chicken-keeping life began in earnest.

Once they began laying eggs, I felt flush with farm-fresh food. During the spring and summer, I ate egg salad, fried eggs, egg sandwiches, quiches, and hard-boiled eggs. They were easy to cook and a good, tasty meal. Ten years later, my parents still have chickens in their backyard (and plenty of eggs on their counters and in their sandwiches), and Farmer Bill and I have 500 laying hens in our pastures.

During the dark winter months, when the nights are long and our egg production dips, we’re lucky if we fill half an egg basket. Now that sunshine is making a return and our hens’ egg production is picking up, we’re a two-egg-basket farm again, which is a sure sign that spring is just around the corner.

Every day when I collect eggs, I’m amazed that these birds provide us with such perfect little protein packages in exchange for a tiny bit of food, water and sunshine. With this amazing bit of magic happening right in the chicken coops in the backyards of our own neighborhoods, I’ve come to wonder: why haven’t we been talking about eggs all along?

(Bottomland Farm, located in Berkshire, N.Y., can be contacted via email at farmer@bottomlandfarm.com.)