tentsterforever wrote:
This exemption is for farmers with less then 300 birds, which are hard to find in the area where I live. Most farms around me are commercial farms and they will not sell eggs at the door. However, i would be cautious buying eggs from a source with a small flock, as there is no way of knowing how they were stored and for how long.
I say that because we have a few chickens of our own, and the eggs we cannot consume we throw out , I wouldn't want anyone to get a bad egg from me .
In reading through the linked document, I couldn't find anything that says a farmer has to be operating outside of the quota system (which is under 100 hens) to sell at farm gate. However, I'm sure very few commercial egg farmers sell at farm gate; they just sell directly to processors because it's what they're set up for.
The reason for the grading exemption for farm gate sales is so that the customer can actually observe the premises, and would be able to ask to see the chickens, before deciding if they want to buy eggs there.
Eggs don't need to be refrigerated- it's only North Americans who do that due to processing style.
If an egg goes bad- you'll know it! You wouldn't get the opportunity to eat it, if you cracked it and smelled it. If an egg has salmonella on it- you'd never know it! Commercial or otherwise. That's why it is recommended that we cook eggs before consuming, and why it would be tempting fate to crack a bunch of eggs into a container and leave them out of the fridge for a few days.
