By Gabriel Martins — Correspondent
Egg shelves are empty across the country. The eggs that do arrive in grocery stores cost much more than they used to. And customers often don’t know where they came from, how healthy the hens are, or when the next batch of eggs will arrive.
Issues like these don’t concern Michelle Poor.
Poor and her husband, Dave, run Free Bird Farm, a 6-acre tract on the Concord-Sudbury border where large, colorful chickens cluck along, drinking water from a brook. In front of the home the Poors built sits a small shack with chipped paint, and inside is a mini-fridge stocked with freshly laid eggs.
“We were like, ‘Hey, we live on a busy road, and we have all these eggs, so why don’t we stick them in there?’” Poor said.
The eggs, priced at $10 a dozen, are selling — fast. On average, Poor puts out 10 dozen eggs a day. In a few hours, they’re sold out.
“We had a woman peel out because somebody bought the last one,” Poor said. “So I didn’t know if I need to start saying, ‘Please just buy one, so that everyone can have a chance.’”
National versus local
Avian flu has devastated poultry farms nationwide, causing seemingly healthy flocks to become lethargic and die off. The USDA, in an effort to curb the disease’s spread to other farms, has ordered 148 million chickens to be killed. The mass culling has caused a nationwide egg shortage, driving up prices.
Small farms in Massachusetts, however, are thriving.
The Poors started raising animals as soon as they bought the land in 2015. At first, there were five goats. Then they added three dogs and 36 chicks. Initially, they were hobby-farming to be more self-sufficient, but then Covid came — and with it a sense of responsibility to provide to the community.
So they got 400 chickens.
“We had this worry we weren’t going to be able to have eggs for ourselves,” Poor said, “and thought maybe we should provide it for the community.”
Not all the chickens survive. Many are picked off by predators, because she allows them to roam free. But she insists that letting the birds free-range has brought good results.
“I think we get more eggs,” Poor said. “They lay earlier, and more than some of the [other backyard farmers] I talk to, and I feel like it’s because they are — I’d like to say they’re happier, but they also might be healthier.”
Customers from near and far
Patsy Boston, a full-time mother in Stow, said she’s been a fan of the farm for about a year. She stumbled upon the egg shack after getting lost. Now it’s part of her life.
“I find myself driving there about three times a week,” Boston said, “whether it be to return my cartons or to pop my head in to see if there are more eggs available. But I’m buying about four to five dozen eggs a week.”
At $10, Free Bird Farm’s eggs are priced higher than those in supermarkets, but Boston said she prefers supporting a local farm.
“They do have to charge a little bit more for their product,” Boston said, “but it’s going to them and going back into the farm, and if it’s to support local, I don’t mind paying a little bit more.”
Jordan Mackey, owner of Nan’s Kitchen, said he buys from Boston Food Hub, a wholesaler for local farms, and small farms like Poor’s, because the quality is higher.
“It’s just great to buy from the local farms,” Mackey said. “The food is better. It’s fresher. It lasts longer in my cooler. It’s cheaper. You know, there’s a lot of advantages to doing it.”
Patronizing other farms
Mackey, who runs Nan’s Kitchen restaurants in Stow, Southborough, and Westford, eventually started retailing products from small local farms, including Free Bird Farms, and other homesteaders.
“We bought so much kale from Applefield Farm here in Stow,” Mackey said. “I believe that they planted more in succeeding years because they counted on us to buy from much of it.”
While consumers are complaining about egg prices and fears of contaminated eggs from bird flu, Mackey says it’s not a concern for him.
“Bird flu is not a local farm epidemic,” Mackey said. “Bird flu is [a] nasty factory-farming epidemic, because they have these chickens stacked on top of each other, and they’re getting resistant to the antibiotics that they’re giving the chickens.”
Liza Bemis of Hutchins Farm, co-chair of the town Agriculture Committee, told The Concord Bridge that besides Free Bird, Marshall Farm, Scimone Farm, and Verrill Farm produce and sell their own eggs.
Town officials have asked farms to alert them of any birds that have died, Poor said. They’ve also warned farms to keep farm animals away from wildlife.
“We’ve been lucky enough to never have a problem with a sick bird,” Poor said.
Although Poor does worry that the bird flu could affect her farm at some point, she insists that this is the perfect life for her.
“It’s hard when it’s cold and in the middle of winter,” Poor said. “But when the weather’s warm, and my chickens are all picking at my garden and the sun’s shining and life is good — to me, that is the best.”
This story is part of a partnership between The Concord Bridge and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
