If you live in or near the Mohawk Valley, chances are you’ve heard of Oliver’s Organic Eggs. More likely than not, you’ve enjoyed their eggs at a local restaurant. Maybe you are a die-hard fan and buy them by the dozen every week. Oliver’s eggs seem to be everywhere!
Of course, that was not always the case. Oliver and Shauna Aeschlimann started the farm in 2011 with the idea of producing eggs for a larger egg conglomerate. When things didn’t work out quite as they had planned (their farm was too small and too remote to be the right fit), they went all in. They now have their own brand—raising laying hens, growing their own feed, washing, sorting, packing, marketing, selling, and distributing eggs throughout Central New York.
It is a big job raising the crops needed to feed their chickens, maintaining the detailed paperwork required for organic certification, and then washing, sorting, packing, and delivering all these eggs. Thankfully, Shauna and Oliver took a moment to answer a few questions for us!
“Oliver and his family moved from Canada to the states in 1995. (His parents are originally from Switzerland!) Oliver grew up and worked on the family dairy farm until we started the chicken farm in 2011.
“Oliver has always liked chickens. Having a chicken farm has allowed Oliver to still be in the farming business (which he loves), and has given him the independence of working for himself.
“We started by converting an old dairy barn on a farm that we were renting into a chicken barn. We have since bought that farm and remodeled the barn again, incorporating automatic nesting boxes* and expanding the size of the coop to allow for more chickens.
“We crop 400 acres, which provides a lot, but not all of our own feed. At this time, we are focusing on laying hens only. We have raised broilers and turkeys in the past. We really enjoyed raising turkeys, but unfortunately the turkey harvest and crop seasons coincide. Last year, we were short on help. Growing organic crops takes a lot of cultivating and weeding between planting and harvest. Ultimately, we thought it would be better to put our time into crops instead of the turkeys.
“Oliver’s main focus is the cropping end of the farm and staying on top of the hens’ feed and nutrition program. He also spends a lot of time in the truck making deliveries. Shauna’s main jobs are cleaning and packaging eggs and handling all the paperwork. We have a few part-time workers that help clean, package eggs, and deliver.
“Currently, we have two other farms that produce eggs for us. This has allowed us to grow and provide our customers with a consistent supply of eggs in between flocks.
“There have been growing pains over the years, mostly coming from trying to scale to meet the demand, figuring out what works best and streamlining the operation. There have also been outside factors such as Covid and the high egg prices last year that have had an effect on the business.
“We love that we are able to sell to a stable market and that we are able to do it with our family. In the future, we plan on building another barn and putting up storage bins for our grain. Having bins and another barn on our farm would help us to be more self-sustainable.”*Automatic nesting boxes direct freshly laid eggs out of the box and down a conveyor belt to a collection area. They keep eggs clean and safe from egg-eating hens, saving the farmer time and money.