Eggs/Chickens

We have been raising free-range chickens on this mountainside since 2012.

As of 2023, we have about 80 chickens that are fed and watered with care everyday, as they roam outside in an ethical and natural environment with no artificial lighting to trigger them to lay more eggs than their bodies can naturally handle.

Here is some basic information about our chickens.....

COLLECTING/POLISHING: All collected by hand every day, and polished by hand after inspecting for cracks or irregularities for quality control.

FEED: They are fed organic matter every day from the farm and some leftover tofu curds from the local store, aside from scratching for bugs and worms on their own, and eating various organic fruit that have fallen off trees. We also supplement with some feed to provide them with a balanced diet.

BREED TYPES: Our breeds are a mix of araucana, nera, black jade birds. We have a few roosters in the coop for protection from wild prey (we get them from time to time), and so that our eggs are fertilized eggs - these are regarded as premium in Japan, as it is rare.

EGGSHELL COLORS: Our breeds are also known to lay less eggs regularly compared to massively grown breeds, making production quantity lower, thus our eggs are valued at a higher price range. The different breeds also determine the color of the eggshells- blueish ones are from araucana, red/pink from neras, and green/grayish shades from black jade birds.

EGG SHAPES and SIZES: It's actually just nature that some eggs are pointy, and some are more round. The different sizes of eggs are because when chickens start laying, the eggs tend to be smaller. As chickens get older, eggs will tend to get bigger. 

YOLK/EGGWHITE: The hue of the yolk depends on the color of their food (more white feed such as rice will make it white-ish, red peppers will make it reddish). We give our girls a balanced diet, so they are a golden yellow for the most part, with slight variations depending on what that particular chicken ate before laying that egg. You will notice that our egg whites will be rather plump, which is a sign of freshness that you may not always get from store-bought eggs.

Stay tuned for more chicken/egg updates from our newsletters and social media posts!