Our egg laying chickens are a variety of breeds that we allow access to fresh pasture, grass, and woods so they can get the best forage possible. When their diet is varied with forage, bugs, grass, etc they produce healthy eggs with deep yellow or almost orange yolks.
Eggs are available to local customers to select neighborhoods via our online stores.
While our chickens are not technically free range, they are the closest thing to it. Our primary flock hangs out in a mobile coop we call the Coop De Ville. The coop and a section of pasture around it, is protected by electrified poultry netting. This keeps the bad guys out. Each week, we move the Coop De Ville to a new section of pasture where the ladies can find plenty of fresh forage of clover, grass, and bugs. It is like free range without all the death associated with it!
Due to the biology of the chicken and the fact that we don’t raise them in a confined, controlled environment, egg production drops off considerably in the winter time. While we may have a limited supply available in the peak winter months, they are sold on a “first come, first served” basis.
We do keep several roosters on “staff” to help protect the hens and to “service” them should we want to hatch out additional chicks. We assume all of our eggs are fertilized. Don’t worry, you will never crack open one of our eggs and see a baby chick. We collect eggs daily and they are washed and stored in a refrigerator. This keeps the egg from developing an embryo.
We do wash our eggs for resale so our customers can get the cleanest product we can produce. If you wanted your eggs to keep much longer, however, receiving unwashed eggs would allow them to stay fresher longer. The reason is as the egg is laid, the hen’s body puts a clear coating over the entire egg which keeps it from being permeable. When this coating is washed off, the interior of the egg can start to evaporate. The state of WV currently does not allow farms to sell unwashed eggs to customers.
Our eggs are collected daily, washed, and placed in the refrigerator. Since we make weekly deliveries, most customers will never get eggs that are older than 1 week. Here is a great article on how old store bought eggs can be and how to determine their age before you buy them.
We love the ideal of recycling everything possible. At RTH, we use custom branded cartons (for appearance and for government compliance). We will accept our own branded cartons back to be relabeled and reused, but we cannot accept other farm’s egg cartons.
Ways to Engage with Red Tool House…
From time to time we document the happens, thoughts, concerns, or most things related to rural living in our blog.
Facebook allows to post the most current information about farm activities or updates on product availability for our local customers.
Instagram is the place where we post recent happenings with pictures/video from around the farm. We try to post from a different perspective on the farm.