Eleanor and James's Eggs

07/12/2022

After many years of putting their eggs out, Eleanor and James are retiring from egg sales. Since 2019 the price of feed and bedding has nearly doubled, and the amount of work involved in keeping a flock of birds has become much more difficult with the annual winter-long bird-flu ‘flockdowns’ which have happened for 3 of the last 4 years. Several times we have had the contents of our shop stolen (usually by a perpetrator who used them to throw at cars on the Common!) We have managed through all of this time while still keeping prices reasonable, and had a lot of fun and learning along the way. But last week we had a fox attack on our hen house. Our house is large and comfort for the birds, with a lining of wire along the base to deter any digging predators. But this fox climbed in over the roof of the barn and chewed its way in from above. In one night it killed 15 chickens and 1 Guinea fowl. We now only have 5 hens, 5 Guinea fowl and one little cockerel left, and have decided not to acquire any more.

The original aim of the Egg Shop was to teach Eleanor and James about money while doing something they enjoyed. Along the way we have found ourselves inadvertently winning Supreme Egg Champion at the County of Berkshire Show, along with numerous other prizes for hens and eggs at village and local shows. We’ve brought our birds and chicks into schools for other children to see, and made good friends among our customers. We’ve also learned about earning and saving money, and bought lots of sweets from Peaches with the proceeds!

We’ll leave you with Eleanor’s school maths project from several years ago, that the maths teacher decided was ‘a bit better than the standard required!’ and awarded her a platinum grade for. It sums up, in under 2.5 minutes, what having the chickens (and ducks, Guinea fowl, geese and peacocks) has been about for them. We would like to thank all of our loyal customers over the years.

This video is about Shared Learning 2 Eleanor 2019

19/06/2021

Some notes on boxes.
Eleanor and James sell their eggs in clear plastic boxes. There are several reasons for this. The main one being that they sell their eggs from a little hutch at the garden gate, and in very wet weather like the weather we had yesterday the egg shop can get a little wet and the plastic boxes are waterproof. This means the eggs are a bit more protected from the weather, and also the boxes don't disintegrate! It also means that people can see the eggs and choose the box with the colours they like best - Eleanor and James have hens that lay all shades of brown eggs at the moment, from very light to very dark brown. They've also had hens in the past that lay blue or white eggs. However, the plastic egg boxes are much more expensive than the cardboard ones. We like to be sustainable, so they are recyclable with your normal plastic waste, however we would much prefer it if you reuse them. Each plastic egg box costs about 32p, whereas cardboard ones are about 10p each. We are not able to reuse the cardboard ones but are able to reuse the plastic ones, so if you want to help us out please bring your plastic egg boxes back to us and we will clean and reuse them. Thank you!

12/06/2021

Eleanor and James have lots and lots and lots of eggs this weekend! They’ll be putting them out in batches as they don’t like them sitting outside too long in the heat, so if there are none by the gate come and see us at the house.

We also have rhubarb- again? Give them a shout if you want some and they will pick it fresh for you. £1 for 5 stems.

22/04/2021

James has asked me to let you all know they have chickens in egg-laying overdrive! There are midweek eggs out in the egg shop. Lots for everyone, the hens are very busy indeed! Make the most while you can - spring is a chicken’s busiest time of year.

27/02/2021

Eleanor and James will be putting eggs out every Saturday and Sunday now. Hens eggs only this year, £1.50 a box.

26/02/2021

We’ve got several nest boxes but these sisters prefer to sit together!

26/02/2021

Little and large eggs today! Eleanor and James have lots of normal sized eggs out for sale too though.

19/02/2021

The hens tell us Spring is here, although it can be hard to tell what with the wind and the rain and cold! We have enough eggs now to put some boxes out at the gate for sale. This year we will be raising the price. We have kept it the same for the last 4 years, but the price of bird feed has not stayed the same in that time. The new price is £1.50 for half a dozen lovely fresh eggs - we guarantee they’ll be the best tasting eggs you’ve ever had and still a bargain compared to supermarket eggs. We just have a couple of boxes by the gate this weekend, but watch this space, within a week or two, we’ll have lots of boxes by the gate. As in previous years, they will go out on a Saturday morning each week.

18/12/2020

Chicken lockdown 2020: it’s not a great for poultry this year either. You may have read that hens now have to be kept in due to outbreaks of avian flu around the country. Our birds have a big shed with lots of bedding and perches, and an outdoor pen with more perches and several covered areas because although they like getting out of their bedroom, they don’t like getting wet! Hopefully they’ll be free ranging again soon. In the meantime we’ll bring hem windfall apples and dig them some worms to eat.

18/12/2020

Here are those lovely eggs from our hens on the bottom row and some ‘large free range eggs’ from a well known local supermarket (which I had to cave in and buy yesterday.) There is no comparison!

18/12/2020

Our hens know what time of year it is! After almost no eggs since the second week of November they have suddenly decided to lay again. It might feel dark and miserable out there, but in only a few weeks the hens will be cranking up their egg production and we will have lots to sell again. 5 of our hens are older ex-battery hens but the rest are rare breeds and they take a break in the late autumn/early winter in order to moult and regrow their feathers (which takes up the energy they would normally give over to laying eggs) and to prepare for a busy spring filled with laying eggs and hatching chicks.

01/06/2020

A polite request - please make sure you have the ability to stop your dogs chasing other animals. It doesn’t matter if that other animal is a chicken, a horse, or a wild rabbit or pheasant. There are 2 ways to keep your dog from chasing things - good training or a lead. Either is acceptable but must be correctly implemented to be effective. It’s been 18 months since our week of a dozen dead birds and we hope it doesn’t happen again. People think I have a thing against dogs - I love dogs, but I don’t love dogs that are chasing my animals, especially when those animals are my children’s pets minding their own business at home.

22/05/2020

Eleanor and James have rhubarb this week. Fresh from the garden at £1 per bunch. If the weather gets very hot we won't be putting eggs in the egg shop as we prefer you to cook them the way you like them! Please call at the house and stand back, we'll do a socially distanced trade!

04/04/2020

It pains me to say this, but please only buy 2 boxes of eggs per customer, and please pay with the correct amount of money. Once again one person has bought all the eggs (6 boxes this morning,) and they have underpaid. Firstly, this is my children's pocket money project. Secondly, we are trying to ensure that there are enough eggs that there are plenty for all of our regular customers. Thank you.

28/03/2020

Eleanor and James are still putting eggs by the front gate. Lots of people have been contacting us and asking us to reserve some eggs for them. We are reluctant to do this as it leads to confusion sometime - Eleanor and James do their best to remember who ordered what but it doesn't always work out! The best way for us is still to put the eggs out by the gate. We are getting lots of duck eggs at the moment - they are huge, and really tasty! The hens eggs always sell first, and we eat the ones not sold ourselves. We are loving eating all the ducks eggs at the moment (and have made a lot of cakes!) so if you've never tried them, now is a good time to give it a go.

We've also made a couple of changes as a result of these strange times.

Firstly, the eggs will all be going out in cardboard boxes. We normally use these for the enormous duck eggs, but they are easier to recycle and we don't need you to bring these back. People don't want used egg boxes at the moment! The duck eggs will have a label on them. Hen eggs won't.

Secondly, we are limiting egg purchases to 2 boxes per customer. Last week one lucky very early customer bought all the eggs! And then we had none for everyone else. Eggs are in shorter supply in the supermarkets at the moment (so I hear) so in order to make sure as many of our customers as possible can buy some we've made this measure.

21/03/2020

Dear customers. This is Eleanor and James's mum here. It is with some disappointment that I am going to be limiting the number of eggs we put out for sale at any one time. Many of you will know that we put out all the eggs late Friday night/very early Saturday morning. We have had callers at the house wanting eggs during the week, so had just 8 boxes to put out this morning (5 hens, 3 ducks.) My husband was up early and noticed a customer at about 6.30am load all of but one box of duck eggs into their car. 7 boxes of eggs that size is a lot of eggs! We have a lot of customers, and try to make sure there are eggs for everyone. Usually we would be happy to save some at the house for those who text ahead, but due to social distancing all eggs are going to the gate at the moment. If some people decide to start taking all the eggs, we will try to ensure there are enough to go round, and I will ask Eleanor and James to make sure there are only a maximum of 2 boxes of hens eggs and one box of duck eggs by the gate at any one time. They are home from school now, so will have plenty of time to do this, and will be putting their eggs out more regularly in smaller batches. This should at least ensure that there are enough for a few customers, rather than lots of eggs for just one. We have 19 hens and 3 female ducks - each day we should be able to put a couple of boxes out. It is a shame we have to do this, but it gives more people a chance to buy some eggs. Many thanks for understanding.

21/03/2020

Morning! I’m getting lots of messages about the eggs atm. They are still being put out very early on a Saturday (with a few more boxes going out on Sunday morning) but lots of people are coming very early too, so if the egg house is empty I’m afraid they have all sold.

Times are unusual now, and we are doing our best to keep eggs out for sale. We are not able to save eggs in the house for anyone, and please respect social distancing by not knocking at the door. I know we have been happy with this in the past but just for a while we would ask you not to. Please be considerate when buying eggs and buy only what you normally would. The hens keep laying more every day.

We will be swapping from our usual plastic reusable cartons this week to cardboard ones. This does unfortunately mean if it rains hard the eggs might get wet, but they have a shell! If you have some of our plastic boxes please use them to collect your eggs in, we will leave some unboxed in a tray. Otherwise please don’t return them to us, we will be using boxes once only atm.

Finally, we’ve noticed the duck eggs are just not as popular. They taste great and are huge! If there are no hens eggs left give them a try. You’ll be surprised!

Thank you to all of Eleanor and James’s customers, keep safe for the time being!