Easter Eggs

I decided for Easter it would be nice to do a post about a small producer who sells eggs from rare breeds of poultry.  This turned out to be trickier than expected!  When I was a child, hens' eggs were usually white (brown eggs were sold at a premium).  When I studied agriculture at Reading University I learnt that the popular breeds which produced white eggs are more efficient than those used for brown egg production. However the industry appears to have largely abandoned white egg production, because customers will pay more for brown eggs.
I found this site, from Ithaca College in America, with details of over 60 different breeds of poultry, but struggled to find a seller near where I live. Thanks to Jamie and Hugh it's relatively easy to buy free range eggs these days. But thanks to DEFRA and the Egg Marketing Inspectorate, the Food Standards Agency and all the other bodies you'll need to comply with it's very hard to buy eggs from a small producer.  Other regulatory bodies may well exist.
You'll also need to comply with the the Food Safety Act 1990, the Egg Marketing Standards Regulations 1995 SI No 1544, the Egg Products Regulations 1993 SI No 1520, the Hatching Eggs and Chicks Regulations, the Ungraded Eggs (Hygiene) Regulations 1990 SI No 1323.  Other legislation may well exist.  The government's Business Link helpfully offers 77 guidance pages for anyone mad enough to consider selling eggs in the UK!

So it's not surprising that most people keeping rare breeds (in relatively small numbers) decide not to bother trying to sell their eggs.  One (former) producer of high welfare free range eggs told she packed it in after working all night to do paperwork.
Incidentally, in case you're wondering, the white eggs in this post are actually duck eggs and the blue eggs are from Old Cotswold Legbar hens from Clarence Court.  When I get chance I'll visit Frank Park, a National Trust tenant farmer in Cumbria, who sells free range eggs. 

Thanks to my son Stephen Pearson - who provided the cracking pictures in this post, and my wife who supplied the eggcellent egg coddler seen in some of the shots.

Happy Easter