Helping home chicken farmers manage & share their eggs

Urban chicken farming has been featured on our virtual pages on several occasions already, including Rentachook’s “try before you buy” approach and Just Us Hens’ chicken-sitting service. The latest spotting? Eggzy, a Philadelphia-based site that aims to help promote home-based and small-scale egg farming in the United States. Now in beta, Eggzy says its mission is “to aggregate backyard chicken flocks so neighborhoods can always find fresh local eggs.” Toward that end, it offers tools to help small-scale flock owners manage their backyard chickens and even create an online egg stand for sharing their production with others. Flock owners can track their egg production using the geo-enabled site as well as share stats, photos and egg availability with their friends and neighbors. By removing some of the burden from large-scale food production and distribution networks, Eggzy says, home chicken farming can restore a sense of place to the food system — what we’d call (still) made here appeal — while increasing food safety and reliability and reducing carbon emissions. Currently more than 550 hens from almost 30 flocks are listed on the site, which is free for use by U.S. flock owners as well as egg lovers in search of a local source. A concept to emulate in other parts of the world? (Related: Site connects producers and buyers of local food.)