Greetings from a budding egg farm in Pullman, Chicago

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In the Brooder
5 Years
Oct 28, 2014
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Hi all. My name's Michael, and I've been keeping chickens in my back yard in Chicago since 2010.

Until this year I've had four Easter Egger hens, which I love. This spring I added eight Australorps and my goodness, what they said about egg production was all true. The eggs are smaller than the ones from my older birds (so far?), but they're piling up in my kitchen at the rate of six a day.

I'd like to start selling eggs to friends and neighbors, and I'd love to hear any tips for handling that. I've only just discovered this site, so I expect I've got plenty of reading to do even without any replies to this post.
 
I'm sure either the mayor or governor will have restrictions and permits and grease the palms to be allowed to sell eggs to the public. I lived in Chicago the first 22 years of my life, and from reading the papers on line, it hasn't changed any. Maybe you could inquire anonymously re: what has to be done to sell eggs to stores or public? I'm sure the Dept.of Health has hoops to jump through as well.

Could you tell me where you found Australorps? A friend(really) wants to get birds in spring - he couldn't find any Black Australorps so wants to wait till the usual miserable winter is over. He tried the Lemont area and around there no luck.

Thank you, and Welcome to Backyard Chickens. Sorry to sound so negative but, moved out of Chicago 45 years ago, and never looked back.
 
Welcome to BYC! Glad you decided to join us. Australorps are my favorite standard breed; extremely hardy, calm and gentle, and the best layers of the standard, brown egg laying breeds. The eggs will get larger as your hens mature. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your Australorps.
 
I did check with the city. They've just recently passed a new ordinance to cover small scale farming, and I spoke on the phone with one of the writers of the law. He told me that they considered covering egg layers, but decided that it wasn't really necessary. They were more concerned about meat animals, and neighborhood nuisance issues like smell and traffic. He also said that the spirit of the law had a lot to do with protecting the farmer from busybody neighbors; that is, of someone complains about my operation, they'd have to show a better cause (filth, noise, other bad-neighbor type stuff) than just not liking the fact that I have a laying flock in my yard. The size of my scale is also such that the city has much bigger things to worry about.

I don't plan to sell my eggs through stores or restaurants. That would bring a whole different set of issues. Home-to-home, though, nobody seems to care unless it becomes a problem.

Both my Easter Eggers and my Austrolorps came from My Pet Chicken: http://www.mypetchicken.com/
 
As a fellow IL resident, IL law isn't that bad... Basically you can sell your eggs "on the premises where the flock is located" to end users (not commercial businesses) without any license or hassles under State law but local and municipal laws are another story, and they vary all over the place from town to town...

http://www.agr.state.il.us/programs/consumer/egg/sellingeggs.html

And a complete overview

http://www.directfarmbusiness.org/eggs/

As drumstick diva suggest, the Windy City Machine and Crook County probably have 101 stupid rules or ordinances you have to follow if they don't flat out outlaw selling or mandate a license... You will have to look up those laws based on your actual address, both municipal and county...

But, chances are if you just sell casually and discretely to friends, family and neighbors you will likely be fine...
 
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Welcome to BYC
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Glad you joined us! If I were you I'd quietly sell the surplus eggs to friends and neighbours. It looks like the law is in your side, thankfully!
 
Hello there and welcome to BYC!
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Michael X2 I am a huge fan of Black Australorops! For a while, they were all I kept! So friendly, docile and LOVE to lap sit!! I can't sit anywhere without an Aussie on my lap! Your eggs will get bigger as time goes on. They are still growing and won't be full grown until they are 1+ years old. The eggs will grow with the bird.

So glad you could join our community and welcome to our flock!
 

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