An egg-citing time on the free-range chicken farm
We recently solved the problem of which comes first, the chicken or the egg. What comes first is a place to raise chickens and eggs, so we headed off to a chicken farm. This was part of our “Where Does It Come From?” series of outings for the kids – making sure they don’t think everything magically comes from a store.
We chose to visit Cedar Valley Poultry, where they raise free-range chickens, and of course, eggs. Owners Betty and George Benson took us on a tour of their family farm, showing the kids everything from what I call mobile grazing shelters (which are moved every couple of days to get even usage of the land) to the delicate timing of cleaning eggs (you don’t want them to cook in the warm wash water). The kids got to help feed the chickens and pick the freshly-laid eggs, and then, after a thorough washing of hands, it was time to taste some hard-boiled free-range eggs. Even the kids could see the difference in the colour of the yolks, and while they’ve always loved eggs, they liked the taste of these even more.
The only down-side to our visit at Cedar Valley Poultry is that our six-year old continues to dream about having a chicken or two in the backyard. Seeing how much work is involved in keeping poultry did not have the desired effect.
