Gosh, I remember when I learned about how chickens are kept for egg laying. It was during Napoleon Dynamite, when Napoleon wanted to earn a few bucks, so he went and worked at a local chicken farm. I remember being disgusted. I know that the goal was not to make it look glorious, but goodness, years later, when I was buying eggs, it made me think twice about those eggs I bought at the store.
Honestly, I have bought the white Kroger brand eggs for years. Right up until we got our own chickens, those white eggs were what we would consume. They were cheap, and for a poor college student or a newly married couple, those were the eggs we bought.
So what’s the difference?
Free-Range
A free-range egg comes from chickens that have access to the outdoors. However, the USDA doesn’t tell farmers how much outdoor space is needed to qualify as free-range, so this can get muddy. This also means that the amount of time outdoors, the location outside, and the quality of the outdoor space aren’t regulated.
However, these eggs are considered to be produced more humanely, which is always better. Free-range allows chickens to exhibit more natural behavior, like foraging and dust baths, and have room to roam and shoot the breeze with their chicken friends.
Pastured
This one is pretty straightforward. Pastured eggs are laid by chickens that have ample outdoor space to forage natural vegetation, bugs, and grubs. In turn, the eggs can be richer in nutrients and taste richer.
Allowing the chickens to roam a pasture allows them a more varied diet. This diet goes into the egg, which ends up going to you!
Cage-Free
Cage-free eggs sound good. But cage-free usually means that the chickens are inside. Again, there is no regulation on how much room there is, so this could mean, in some cases, that the chickens are packed into a small space where they cannot exhibit natural behaviors.
Some farms are considered cage-free and provide ample space for the chickens to move about and exhibit their natural behavior. That being said, cage-free still means they are most likely inside. Regulations don’t require outdoor space to be considered “cage-free.”
Knowing Your Brands
It’s important to know the brands you are buying eggs from. As you can see above, there are caveats even in cage-free and free-range eggs. It’s important to do your research on egg brands and buy eggs that you feel comfortable buying. It’s all personal preference.
Buying From a Local Backyard Chicken Owner
Something I think is important when buying from a local egg dealer is knowing what feed they are giving their chickens.
It’s so important that the farmer is giving their chickens non-GMO food.
We recently switched to a locally grown and mixed grain feed. With our backyard chickens, we don’t have the space, nor do we want our chickens messing up our flower and garden beds, so we have chosen to go with a grain feed instead of a pelleted feed, as this mimics a more naturally foraged diet.
Our chickens have an amazing space to free-range, and with the grain feed we give them, they live a happy, healthy life. They get to forage in their area for bugs and grubs, we give them grass clippings to dig and scratch through, and they get scraps from the kitchen.
Our chickens’ egg yolks are richly colored, and we can never go back to store-bought eggs because our eggs are so much more richly flavored.
