Help! Someone Accused me of selling old eggs

[Birdsong 82]

I’m with Sourland. Anytime she says she needs eggs I would claim to be out also. If she’s not a customer anymore then you have all happy customers. Her story makes me skeptical also because she just now mentioned it happening but said it’s been more than once and if I bought a batch of bad eggs from somebody I either would immediately say something or not buy from them again. Why didn’t she say anything in the first place
I sell mine for three dollars a dozen but if you bring me a carton it’s 250 a dozen. So I have plenty of cartons now. LOL I do have one customer that absolutely refuses to pay me less than five dollars a dozen. If I won’t except five dollars which I think is crazy she won’t except the eggs. And she buys three dozen a week. She said she was Paying seven dollars a dozen at the health food store. That’s crazy

 

[Birdsong 82]

In a very rural area of North Central Illinois, I get $2/dozen. I know some around me ask and get $3. Store egg prices are under $2 though. I know if you head just a little closer to the suburbs, $4 and up is common, more for each tag-line you add like organic/free range/non gmo/vegetarian/blessed by elves, etc...

Well they are free range and GMO free, and organic. I guess I need to work on being blessed by elves. LOL
You can buy those terrible tasting eggs from the store in our area for $.50 a carton sometimes. They’re not worth $.50 to me though

 

[lazy gardener]

I had a co worker who would chase me around, stuffing money into my pocket. She always paid more than I was asking. When I told her it wasn't fair to the rest of my customers, she'd just smile, and say it's a gift. Buy your chicks some extra goodies. She also appreciated a good thing, knew how my birds were housed and fed, and said my eggs were better than anything that she could buy at the health food store, while costing half as much.

 

[Birdsong 82]

I think this lady was just trying to appreciate a good thing and said that mine are probably fresher than what she’d even get in the health food store. Just because they’re in the health food store doesn’t make them any fresher necessarily. Plus she said mine were much bigger. And also it’s about supporting local businesses and knowing that her eggs only traveled 20 miles from my house to hers. She’s also seeing pictures of my chickens and their housing and them roaming in the yard and she likes to be able to see where her eggs come from she said and is happy to see they’ve got tons of greens to forage On and clean conditions to live in And the fact that they look so healthy

 

[Ridgerunner]

Just getting the farm up and going, and a customer of mine accused me of selling old chicken and duck eggs. She said that she has bought eggs from me multiple times that have gone bad (although I'm just hearing about this) and that I need to start dating them because I can't keep track of how old my eggs are. I offered her a full refund, but never heard back. Have plenty of other repeat customers with no complaints, and I personally know that the eggs she had were only about 2 months old (<1 month old when I gave them to her, she had them for about a month).

Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem, what they did about it, and if there is anything I can do differently. I collect daily, keep my eggs in the fridge once collected, and scrub them before giving them to the customer if they are dirty. I inspect each one for holes/cracks. I don't want this person to slander my name before I even get my farm really up and going.

Do you know what she means by "gone bad"? It's not that unusual for a hen to lay an egg with something inside, a blood spot or meat spot usually. Commercial operations electronically candle their eggs to remove any of these before they hit the store so their customers aren't surprised. They sell the eggs with things inside them to customers that break the eggs before use, like bakeries or for pet food. The people I give or sell my eggs to understand this is part of farm fresh eggs. It is always a good idea to break our eggs into a bowl before we add them to anything. Is this the complaint?

You refrigerate yours immediately. They can go months like that without going bad. But you wash them if they are dirty just before you sell them. They should be pretty cold but you always want to use water warmer than the egg when you wash them. If you use colder water the air cell can shrink which causes a vacuum that can suck water in through the porous shell. If that water has any bacteria in it that bacteria could contaminate the eggs.

How does she store the eggs? Since you wash the dirty ones you remove the "bloom". Bloom is a coating the hen puts on the as it is laid, that's why an egg just laid looks wet, it is. When it dries the bloom helps stop bacteria from entering the porous egg. Also since yrs are refrigerated, they might get some condensation on them as they warm up. That might interfere with the bloom. Eggs with the bloom intact can last a long time on the counter, but since yours have been refrigerated, your customers need to refrigerate them too.

Are your eggs fertile? If fertile eggs are stored much above 80 degrees F they can develop a little. The warmer they are the faster they develop. Again, how is she storing the eggs?

 

[Birdsong 82]

Very true. Did she explain what she meant about bad egg? I know somebody who got a complaint on their fresh eggs claiming there was a worm in a couple. When she sent him the picture it turns out it was a meat spot. Once she researched that and realized it’s normal for a fresh egg she was fine. Some people are easier than others though

 

[Ms Biddy]

Curious what the normal is from others.
I very rarely sell eggs but I give tons away.
If they are dirty I keep them to eat.
If over a week old I keep them to eat.
I don't wash eggs and usually don't refrigerate them either.

Normal for us is: we sell a few dozen a week ($4/dz) and give a lot away. We don't wash them unless they're dirty, and we keep those for us. We rarely have eggs longer than a week. The house is warm so they do get refrigerated.

 

[Mosey2003]

Well they are free range and GMO free, and organic. I guess I need to work on being blessed by elves. LOL
You can buy those terrible tasting eggs from the store in our area for $.50 a carton sometimes. They’re not worth $.50 to me though

Meh, all eggs taste equally gross to me

 

[Birdsong 82]

What ?! Between the three of us in our house we go through probably three dozen at least a week. Have you tried the ones that were blessed by elves yet? LOL

Meh, all eggs taste equally gross to me

 

[Mosey2003]

I only pretend I'm happy about the eggs, I really just like chickens!!!

In all honestly, I'll eat an egg here and there, but after an ill-advised "egg diet" a few years ago, I really could live the rest of my life without another.