Easter Eggs, from Our Farm to Your Family
Easter is this weekend, and with all this talk about egg hunts, egg dying, and egg eating, we couldn’t help but start reminiscing about our flock of laying hens and just how far our egg program has come over the years.
When we started Quabbin Hill Farms nearly a decade ago, it was a small operation. Think a dozen trays of microgreens in a small grow tent, half an acre of produce in the fields, and a dozen laying hens. But as you may have noticed from our previous blog posts, we’ve grown a lot – and this year, we’re really reflecting on that growth and sharing our journey with our community. We want to show you who we are, how we got here, and where we want to go next. Not just because we want you to have background information about our business, but because we want you to be a part of our next chapter. We say it every season, but we really mean it: We wouldn’t be where we are today without the support of customers and community members like you!
Take our egg laying flock for example. When we started farming, we welcomed a dozen hens to the farm in a small mobile coop we moved around our 17-acre Pelham property. We were new to raising chickens – and new to collecting eggs. Despite the lovely nesting boxes we set up for them, our flock of free range birds laid there eggs in hidden locations all over the place: under bushes, in tall grass, inside woodpiles, near building corners, you name it! It took a lot of time, some creative problem solving, chicken research, and patience, but eventually we got the hang of our laying hens and their delicious farm fresh eggs.
And it’s a good thing we did, because from the very beginning, our eggs have been one of our most popular items at farmers’ markets and at our roadside farm stand. Every week, we would sell out of half and full dozen offerings, and when larger grocery stores were facing egg shortages like last year, we were inundated with one request: MORE EGGS! Even when it came time to solicit CSA memberships, our egg share options were always the first to fill up.
We get it, there are few things in life as delicious as a farm fresh egg. And we think they taste even better when you know the folks who raised the hens who produced them, and you know they were raised to have happy, free lives. But keeping up with demand has been hard in the past. We’re a small operation with just four main farmers to help, so keeping a larger flock wasn’t always easy. Because we raise our hens as mix of free range and pasture-raised birds, they are more vulnerable to the elements (and the local predators) than factory-farmed birds raised solely indoors. We had major losses because a pack of coyotes moved in and decided our flock was basically a free buffet. We had serious beef with a couple of hawks who saw hen hunting on the farm as a fun daily activity. The stories we could tell go on and on, and aren’t that surprising to any farmer who has tried to raise egg laying hens in the Pioneer Valley.
But we kept going, because our community had spoken, and what they had said was MORE EGGS! So we improved our farm infrastructure by adding more protective fencing, improving our coops (and adding more), and adding animal deterrents. We added new and improved nesting boxes and started using decoy eggs to train our hens where to lay. Now, we have more hens and more eggs than ever.
And how did we do any of this? At the demand of and with help from our community! Every year when we get CSA signups, we take a portion of that money and put it towards our egg program, and alongside some help from our family in the form of funds and manual labor, we have more hens and more eggs than ever before.
This Easter on the farm looks a lot different than it did all those years ago! For one, our flock of hens has grown from a dozen to over 100, from one breed to ten, from brown egg layers to rainbow layers of every color. With the market right around the corner, we know we’ll have more eggs for sale than ever before. We added more egg share options to our Spring and Summer CSA options, and we even have our eggs for sale at two local stores we adore: Mill Valley Milk Store in Hadley and Cushman Market & Café in Amherst.
Things have changed, but one thing remains the same: If you want the most beautiful rainbow eggs for Easter that you don’t have to dye, you know where to find them at Quabbin Hill Farms.
And, if you’re looking for more Easter inspiration, check out our recipe for farm fresh deviled eggs and honey glazed ham steak!
