At the Hy-Vee grocery store near me in Robbinsdale, MN, recently, there were more than a dozen different “kinds” of eggs one could buy, each carton advertising some specific quality you might want in an egg. It was overwhelming. The cheapest were no frills, seemingly brandless “Grade A large white eggs” at $1.54. These are eggs from chickens who probably have behavioral issues and use illicit drugs. Another category of eggs were those advertised primarily for their size: Jumbo eggs, extra large eggs, and large eggs, though no egg would admit to identifying as a small egg.
One brand of eggs was advertised according to its health properties—as having vitamins D, E, B12, B2, and B5—which, as I understand it, is standard among eggs, so they must not have had much else going for them. And then there were eggs who were known by the lives their mothers lived, so that we might know they didn’t live in a tight urban area with high taxes and sky-high rents, but rather had, presumably, ample bucolic lands on which to strut and cluck and be distracted while their delicious unborn children were stolen from them. These eggs were varyingly called farm fresh, cage free, pasture raised, organic free range, pasture raised organic, free range organic, cage free omega 3 brown eggs (the only one to explicitly call out shell-color), as well as even more descriptive eggs like “Free range (from hens raised on small family farms),” and “Pasture raised (100 sq feet of outdoor space per hen).”
Topping out on the high-end were “Pasture raised organic eggs (100 sq feet of outdoor space per hen)” at $7.59 a dozen. Nowhere was it noted how much time the hens are allowed to spend in their 100 feet of outdoor space and whether the space was even enviable property, nor were the state and size of their indoor enclosures noted, and likewise all details of their romantic lives were unaccounted for, but I imagine that, were you to want that information, it would cost you.
I keep thinking about getting backyard chickens, conceiving of them more as potential friends than as a food source, though I would not turn down an occasional egg. The squirrels and rabbits and chipmunks I spot in the yard are cute but, without cages to confine them and their homes hidden from view, they are fleeting. They are also thieves and vandals.
But chickens, as I understand it, will basically hangout if you give them a little house to live in and provide them with food and water. Even if you take their eggs, they seem to understand that the exchange is the price of rent and relative safety. A few doors down my neighbors have some, and I like to hear the noises they make, quietly clucking about their business.
If I think about it, all in all I guess I want my eggs to be large and nutritious, and I want the chickens who lay them to enjoy themselves, so much as they are able. I don’t care so much about their color.
But then I think, my yard is not very big, and at best I could not offer them 100 square feet each. They would be lucky to share 100 square feet between them, however many there were. Stuck in the back behind my camper, their scenery extremely limited, they would have to listen to the sounds of traffic, of sirens late in the night and no pastures in sight. And sometimes I think, if that is no life for a chicken, what kind is it for a man?
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