In an old cupboard in the basement, I found this little treasure. It is a Dekalb Agric. Ass’n egg scale. What fun to find out the size and weight of our eggs.
This little gizmo is left over from when my husband’s parents sold eggs many years before I came on the scene. When my husband was growing up here on the farm, his parents sold eggs…lots of eggs. They raised 300 chickens. The “egg man” would drive up in his truck and take a week’s-worth of eggs to warehouse. The scale may have been a help in the selling process.
In those days, brown eggs sold for less than the white eggs. They made it to bakeries, but not to store shelves. Our farm eggs were brown then as they are now.
When the poulets start laying eggs in the summer, the eggs are small. As time goes on, they get to be like the egg pictured on our scale. They get to be extra large and even bigger.
I used to see this little scale tucked in a utility shelf in the basement. I have really enjoyed examining it and reminiscing about how it was used in the past. Now I will have to display it more openly. It is a real memory, here on Heritage Farm.
photo credit:Wenda Grabau
That’s so cool! I didn’t know they had THAT many chickens…wow!
Yes, we used to have egg cartons that held about 144 eggs. They were stacked and put in crates for the egg man. But I think we have used the old ones in brooder house to hold chick feed for the young chicks.