Karen and her well-dressed chicks
There’s nothing like fresh local eggs, a truth understood by many islanders. One such local huevo-vore, Karen Biondo, dared to asked the question, just how much do we love our fresh local laying hens? In her annual Egg-o-nomics report, Karen shares her findings and fascination with the incredible edible egg, and the egg-o-nomics of supply and demand here on Vashon. Thank you Karen for frying up a fine side of info for your egg-eating, chicken-raising neighbors. -Tom Conway
Vashon Island Egg-o-nomics Report 2011
By Karen Biondo
With prices nesting around $6.50 or $7.50 for a dozen eggs, it’s surprising to believe there are still not enough eggs! Aside from the politics of organic, local, free range, vegetarian, flax-seed-eating, low-carbon foot-printing, you likely know the truth, that a truly farm fresh egg just tastes better, and because so many of us want them it is causing a crisis of eggpic proportion!
Any way I pencil it, there are just not enough eggs to satisfy the demand for these delicious buff colored orbs of nutrition (or brown, white, blue, pink…) It is the dark season for egg laying, but not for too much longer, as we continue to add one minute of light to our day (www.timeanddate.com) going forward. There is not quite enough sun in the girls’ faces and they are having to travel farther afield to find too few bugs, grubs and worms to meet their daily protein requirement for egg laying. (That said, with the mild winter we’ve had so far, I see the chickens successfully scratching up a fair number of worms from the back garden.) Yes, a light on a timer in the hen house does help some, though it’s just not the same as the cosmic rays of sunshine pouring into the pupil of a hen’s eye.
My Annual Eggonomics Report for 2011: Fun facts (data) and astute assumptions:
- Data from US Census 2010: http://2010.census.gov/
2010census - Vashon population = 10, 624
- Number of Vashon households = 4,545
- Number of people per household = 2.24
- Data from USDA/Cornell University: http://usda01.library.
cornell.edu/usda/current/ ChickEgg/ChickEgg-02-25-2011. pdf - Average egg production in Washington State: 273 eggs per year (The range of production: Massachusetts= 323, Tennessee = 205)
Data from Eggonomics Survey:
- Survey sent to: VashonALL, Vashon Poultry listserve , VIGA listserve and LaBiondo listserve
- 83 respondent households
- = just under 2% of households or 185.92 peeps, also just under 2% of total Vashon population
- Of the 83 responding households
- 50 households keep chickens.
- Those who keep less than 12 chickens, the average number of backyard chickens = 5
- The total number of eggs per week consumed per household = 1 dozen
- The highest weekly egg consumption reported is 48 eggs per week for a household.
A surprising number of households had lots of chickens but ate very few eggs. One household has 40 chickens and only eats four eggs per week. Are they hoarders? (And no, you can’t go to their house and demand they sell you their extra eggs.) Okay, let’s do some math:
Karen’s Astute Assumptions
- There are approximately 13 farms on Vashon Maury Islands that produce eggs for sale. Sadly and oddly, only three farmers responded to my survey. I therefore grant myself permission to make up data for the other 10 farms based on nothing more than my intuition and some historical knowledge of these farmer friends.
- Total respondents chickens in residence: 780
- Total chickens in residence from farmers not responding = 340 ( I bet I am within 90% accuracy)
- Total chicken population on Vashon Maury Island= 1,120
- 1,120 hens X 273 eggs per year = 305,760 eggs per year / 52 weeks = 5,880 eggs per week or 490 dozen eggs per week .
2. This assumes all 1,120 hens are Rhode Island Reds in their prime of eight months to 18 months of age. HAH! What we lack in ethnic diversity with Vashon humans, we make up for in the variety of chickens and therefore production expectations.
3. Extrapolating from the data above to arrive at a conjectural conclusion:
Let’s say 20 % of the population of Vashon Maury Islands eat one dozen eggs per week: 2,124.8 residents eat 1 dozen eggs per week = 25,497.6 eggs per week / 12 = 2,124.8 dozen
Conclusion:
If I am anywhere near accurate in my calculation of 490 dozen eggs produced on Vashon, we are in a bigger egg crisis than I thought when I started this survey.
- We need 2,124.8 dozen eggs per week.
- We produce 490 dozen eggs per week.
- We have a shortfall of 1,634 .8 dozen eggs!
- And this is in the best of times, when the girls are busy actualizing their full potential. No wonder there are egg wars and egg napping from farm stands.
My statistics may be suspect, my math may be slightly inaccurate, but still there IS an egg shortage. It will not last forever, but it will be painful for another few months.I do have a partial solution for this eggonomic recession. Like all crisis, we need to pull together as a community. Egg Rations! If you can possibly get by with a half dozen eggs at one time, you will help another egg dependent family. I also believe every household that is able should have five hens in their backyard. They are such efficient creatures. They eat your kitchen scraps, eat cut worms and all sorts of bad bugs from the garden, give you fertilizer for the land if you are so inclined, when they are done laying, the give you soup! Another option is to eat your kale and wait ’til spring!
Happy New Year to us all. May our gardens and friendships grow abundantly!
Karen Biondo
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