Are you really buying free range eggs?

ALIBOBSY

Best bet is to source from a local farmer where you can see the chooks running about, we get ours either from the "veggie" farm shop or the "meaty" farm shop we go to as both also have chooks free ranging about. The "meaty" shop sells their own beef and sheep (you can see them as well lol). They also do local pork/bacon(high welfare outdoor raised pigs proper dry cured bacon mmmmm) and free range chicken from 2 other nearby farms. I have what the supermarkets would class as a large chicken (with giblets) in the oven now only cost £5.80, miles cheaper than the SM's. Pay around £1 a dozen for the eggs which are usually very large and you even get the occasional double yolker (remember them).

Defo go local

ali x

PS farmer let us take the kids in to see the new lambs and their mums awwwww. You can see they are happy and well looked after.

clutterydrawer

noonesperfect wrote: »

I live in the countryside and used a farm/farmshop that I believed would only deal in "wholesome" produce (also within 2 miles of my house). Incidentally their eggs were £1.60 per dozen, which I considered to be good for free range. Before they opened "properly" you could go for odd bits and pieces and see hens and cockerels scratting about, so I sort of got the idea that everything they sell will be "wholesome and farm fresh"! I'm not going there again.

why's that again?

geordie_joe

clutterydrawer wrote: »

why's that again?

It's all in post #1

DaisyNelson

No stamps or codes on my eggs, but I have seen my Mum going in the shed to collect them.:j

Money_maker

IsoChick wrote: »

I have hens and ducks at home, and sell our surplus eggs to people at work...

We don't wash or stamp the eggs, and use recycled egg boxes (e.g. from tesco, asda, morrisons etc)

If someone is selling eggs in this way, or from a gate etc, they often aren't stamped (or washed in my case!)

I often call my eggs Happy Eggs - my chickens and ducks aren't totally free range - they live in a 100sqm fox-proof pen with a roof on

Although they are fed on organic food, I can't call them organic, as our land hasn't been certified organic, and the birds we have weren't from organic eggs. However, the eggs still taste better than anything you can buy in a supermarket!

I do the same! I agree that the best way to buy eggs is where you can actually see the hens. My girls are ex free range - but the term 'free range' is quite loose in the respect that it covers how many can be stocked in an area and the ability to be able to access the great outdoors. It conjurs visions of happy gambolling hens in green grassy fields when the reality can be a massive pen, thick with mud and excrement with the maximum number of hens they can squeeze in.

Having said that, its the best that hens can expect from large scale producers and are infinately much better than barn or cage.

clutterydrawer

oh i see didn;t realise it was the same person!

xxvickixx

I thought the same as you clutterydrawer. Glad you asked, I get it now too. I went to a farm shop for the first time a few months ago with my friend, most of the fruit and veg was not farm produce, and some was labelled "produce of Zimbabwe" and the like. I can't believe that people were paying over inflated prices for the stuff which had clearly been bought in from the supermarket. It wasn't even in a rural place, the Tesco was less than a mile down the road. That really put me off bothering to find one near me, but I think I might try now I have heard some more positve stories. Still good to know about the eggs, it's quite shocking ripping off the people who try to support the local farmer.

Musclez

Don't live in the country side but buy them from main shops.