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Being particular about eggs
We want to bring back that good old
taste! |
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Oshida Farm |
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Magaribata Farm |
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After graduating from a veterinarian college,
I joined this industry instead of
succeeding my father who was running a pet's hospital in Otaru.
At that time, I made a
promise to my father as he said to me, "Veterinarians
work for health of animals. If you
are going to breed chickens, do not ever mistreat them to
make profits."
That is why I stick to an open chicken house, although windowless
chicken houses are
the mainstream today.
During the first 10 years, I worked at a hatchery where I
thoroughly learned how to
bring up chicks. I was also allowed to anatomize dozens of
chickens and learn about
their diseases and health.
After I started my own farm, the first thing that came to
mind was to "bring back the
good old taste in eggs."
Eggs that we ate in our childhood had firm egg yolk and white,
had no odor and tasted
very good. That was because a farm house typically would have
five to ten chickens
feeding in the yard. Chickens were free to move around and
catch insects or fish, dig
into leaf soil and eat microorganisms, eat grass and vegetables,
and drink stream
water rich with minerals.
As the egg farming industry entered the era of cost competition,
the business became
large-scale, raising millions of chickens at one place. Significant
technological advances
were also made in feeds to lower the cost. But improvement
in nutrition balance and
egg production was based primarily on economic factors, rather
than preference and
health of chickens. While this was good for the development
of the egg farming industry,
produced eggs smelled of grains, yellow color of egg yolk
was paler, and the taste had
become less rich and bland.
I decided to bring back the old taste of eggs. Because chickens
and eggs are both alive
and breathing, I believed that clean air and water and feed
preferred by chickens were
important to their health. That is why I was particular about
open chicken house.
In the case of egg-laying animals such as chickens, eggs cannot
receive any nutrition
from the parent once they are laid. Therefore the parent instinctively
try to supply as
much nutrition as possible to the egg while it is still in
its body. Believing that eggs
with old-fashioned taste can be produced by using these characteristics
and improving
the feed, I put it into practice.
I tried everything: feeding leaf soil from the mountains;
feeding paprika powder to
make the color of egg yolk deeper; feeding powders of crustacea,
shrimp and seaweed
instead of insects and small fish that pastured chickens eat;
mixing concentrated juices
of aloe, gingko, mugwort, bamboo shoot, etc. into drinking
water. After 20 years of trial
and error, I finally managed to produce the current eggs which
taste close to the taste
of the old days.
We also believe in the importance of how chickens are raised
during the infantile
period. Newborn chicks are pastured up to about 70 days for
exercise, raising them to
have firm bone structures and physique. Although open chicken
house is inferior to
windowless house in terms of disease prevention and high number
of chickens in a
small area, chickens can breathe a lot of fresh air and bathe
in the sun, even if for one
hour. Healthy chickens lay healthy eggs.
The word on eggs created this way gradually spread nationwide
by word of mouth.
Today, we regularly deliver our eggs to more than 4,500 customers
throughout Japan. |
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