advice please (to sell eggs)

[chkinut]

hi everyone! i have owned chickens for years and we are thinking of getting more girls and selling their eggs at the local farmers market in Ohio. we are fairly new in our research of this and i thought i would come here and ask some fellow chicken lovers. what are the laws for selling eggs? would we need insurance? or is it as easy as just selling them? i am not in this for the money, i simply love chickens and i was also thinking of starting a rent-a-coop business a bit down the road (where people can rent or rent to own a small coop with 2 or 3 hens). so the egg selling would be the beginning for us. ANY advice would be GREATLY appreciated! thanks!

 

[Realtree4]

I'm from ohio and just looked into the laws of selling in ohio as well! There are certain "rules" that you have to follow depending on what you have in mind. If you want to seek outside of your property (e.g. Farmers market) then you need to be inspected through Dept of Ag? I can't remember who does the actual inspections but I believe it's the dept of Agriculture.

If you're just selling to friends and family and you aren't delivering them, meaning you're just selling on your property and if you have a small number of hens, then basically there aren't any "laws" basically practice common sense. I talked to a professor at Wooster and he said, keep eggs refridgerator at 45 degrees, have your name, address, phone number on the egg carton and I don't "have" to wash them if the carton has proper handling instructions....which most do.

It's when you're taking the eggs off your property and have a larger number of hens that the laws kick in. Contact your counties health department and they can give your more info. I ended up talking to ours after the man at Wooster, just t get some more info.

Hope that helps!

Edited to add: I LOVE the co-op idea!

 

[chkinut]

thats wonderful advice!!! thanks SO much!!!