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A little info on our girls and
eggs . . . Morning Owl Farm has been raising free-rangin', pasture-grazin' ducks since we
started growing food in 2004. In that time, we've gone from six to 250 layer hens so that we now sell between 40-75 dozen
eggs each week. Our girls (and a few boys) are cooped at night to protect them from predators and
to provide them a sense of safety--very important to ducks. In the morning, they're let loose for what we call "the running
of the ducks" to roam semi-freely (behind electric netting--again, the predators), munch weeds, grass and "protein
sources" (bugs and such), swim, drink, flap, quack, and generally act like ducks. To see the Running of the Ducks,
go to Youtube and see for yourself. Once the gang is out of the barn, we collect their eggs
to wash, sanitize, pack and refrigerate them. For those wondering how you wash so many eggs, you just do. There's no equipment
designed for an operation of our size; everything is for the egg factories or for the home egg producer. We've developed a
procedure we think is pretty safe, based on consultation with department of ag folks in three states. Here's how we do it: 1. Fill a sink or basin with 125 degree water. As the water is filling, add a drop
of one of the natural, unscented dish washing liquids. We use Planet or Seventh Generation, whichever is on sale when
we need it. 2. Add 12 eggs . Time yourself and see how fast you can
clean a dozen eggs. The eggs won't turn into pumpkins at two minutes, but the longer the eggs are in water, the greater is
the risk they'll absorb bacteria--bacteria it should be mentioned, that will be killed if the eggs are cooked correctly. Since
you can never guarantee that, try not to sell eggs with bacteria by letting them sit in dirty water no more than two minutes.
Take home lesson? Wash fast! Wash the eggs using either a rag or a scrubbie, one of those things with an abrasive pad
on one side and a sponge on the other. This takes off all of the visible markings from the laying process. 3. We clean 60 eggs in a batch. When the 60th egg is clean, we draw a bath now of cold
water and a little bit of chlorinated bleach--a very little bit. Get testing strips until you figure out how much bleach and
water are needed to get to 100 ppm. 4. Set 10 eggs in the bath for
10-seconds. Set them on a drying rack or towel to dry. 5. Candle the eggs
when dry to find blood spots and cracks. Blood spots are not uncommon when layers are starting to lay, but they're the exception
not the rule. Still, if you're selling eggs, do your best to be sure they don't leave your farm; you want to give your eaters
the best product you have! 6. Place eggs in clean cartons. We have
re-used cartons that we know were taken care of, but if I'm not 100% sure, I use a new one. I never reuse cartons from small
flock owners, for instance, because I'm not sure that they didn't put dirty eggs in the cartons. Cartons are cheap and you
can reuse old cartons for things like "dog eggs" (eggs too big or too small to sell or eggs with slight cracks that
can be boiled and fed to your dogs). 6. We save all of the shells from culled
eggs and feed them back to the hens. Given a choice of oyster shell or their own egg shells, the hens will choose the shells
for their source of calcium. Our method isn't for everyone. The USDA doesn't like you
to immerse eggs in water at all, but the USDA is regulating egg factories, not farmers like us who take precautions and who
are using methods for our scale operation that have been used since farmers started collecting and selling eggs. If you want our delicious duck eggs, they're available
at the Boise Co-Op, but do sell out quickly. In general, we try to deliver on Thursdays. We're very proud,
too, to report that our eggs are served at Red Feather Lounge and Le Cafe de Paris
in downtown Boise. 
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