by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
What came first – the chicken or the egg?
Just go ask Deb Funk; she knows the answer. It’s chickens. Hens. Plural. Then eggs, eggs and more eggs. Enough to make an omelet the size of Rhode Island.
And don’t go telling Funk not to put all her eggs in one basket. She couldn’t if she tried.
About six weeks ago, Funk bought 500 hens. Weeks later, she is up to her eyeballs in eggs. Many people dub the rural Rice woman “The Egg Lady.” It’s a compliment, but Funk says sometimes she wishes she wasn’t quite such an Egg Lady. That’s because she has just too many of them, too many to sell.
Some months ago, she bought the 500 hens from a guy in Gaylord who raised hens for Organic Valley. The hens are Tetra Browns and lay brown eggs. They are free-range hens, meaning they can run and trot all over the place to their hearts’ content, eating their fill of organic mash food and any bugs they might happen to come upon.
“They’re also trampling down the grass,” Funk noted. “They’re friendly. But they’re taking over. They’re good layers. Too good!”
Funk recently sold 100 of the 500 Tetra Browns, and she’s aiming to sell some more – hens and eggs. On May 21, Funk had a stand at the Sauk Rapids Farmers’ Market, but egg sales tend to be slim at farmers’ markets – that is, too slim to sell the 30 dozen a day the busy hens have been laying. That’s 360 eggs. One day’s worth. She’s going to try the Pierz Farmers’ Market next week.
“I bring a lot of the eggs to places closer to the Twin Cities where people buy them to sell,” she said. “And friends of friends will sometimes buy them. But, well, it comes right down to the fact I’m just not cut out to be a sales lady,” she said with a laugh.
Funk has lived near Rice for the past 12 years. During that time, the Gold‘n Plump chicken company would rent a barn from Funk for an egg-laying operation. Funk would pick up the eggs from under the hens, put them in racks, and then Gold‘n Plump would ship them to a big incubating plant in Arcadia, Wis. Once the chicks hatched and were healthy, they’d go into a broiler barn.
“At least in all those years, the eggs would at least go somewhere,” she said. “Now, it’s a different story.”
She quit her relationship with Gold‘n Plump just last year. Then the guy from Gaylord more or less talked her into buying all those Tetra Browns, telling her he had a market for most of the eggs. Well, that didn’t quite work out.
Most hens, younger ones, lay only one egg per day; that’s a good thing. But, not to forget, in Funk’s case, that’s nearly 400 hens, nearly 400 eggs.
Funk is not, nor as she ever been, a quitter. And she has a knack for making fun of her own egg dilemma, laughing about the situation. But she’s been in a ponderous state for the past four weeks, ever since she bought all those hens.
“I just might have to hang it up,” she said laughing. “I can’t eat that many eggs myself.”
Does she like eggs?
“Oh, yes, I do,” she said. “Over easy.”
Need some eggs, anybody? Call Deb at 320-393-7350.
Deb Funk, known as the “Egg Lady,” stands by her egg-selling booth at the Sauk Rapids Farmers’ Market May 21. Next to her are visitors Roger Neu and his granddaughter, Aurora Neu, both of Pierz.
