Teen egg farmers learn business, responsibility

By TED SLOAN, Kentucky Agricultural News

The chickens that produce the colorful Chelsey’s Eggs eat grass, live in remodeled cattle trailers and a “hoop house,” and graze alongside black Angus cattle. The business is headed by two teenagers who started out when they were toddlers.

It’s not your ordinary poultry operation. And the eggs are no ordinary eggs. Most of them are brown, but some come in bluish or greenish hues. Many of them are extra large. And the family that raises them says pasturing the hens gives the eggs added health benefits.

Chelsey and Jared Schlosnagle produce and sell the eggs with the help of their parents, Susan and Doug, on their northern Shelby County farm. They keep about 1,600 hens that produce 70-90 dozen eggs per day.

The business literally has given Chelsey, 15, and Jared, 14, a lifetime of experience. They started out when they were 4 and 3 years old, respectively, raising about a dozen hens and selling the eggs to friends, neighbors and people at church. They have learned about caring for chickens and producing eggs but also about running a business and dealing with people.

“We’ve worked with people a lot since we’ve gone to Whole Foods to do demos and talk to people about the eggs,” said Chelsey, an incoming sophomore at Henry County High School. “We’ve also learned about responsibilities. We’ve got to come out and feed the chickens. We can’t just skip a day. It’s a lot of responsibility.”

“Tons of responsibility,” said Jared, an incoming freshman at Henry County High School.

The business has grown in spurts over the years. They were keeping about 150 chickens in each of two cattle trailers about six years ago when they needed to expand again. So they built a large “hoop house” that a commercial manufacturer scaled down for their operation and set up on skids so it can be moved easily. The hoop house holds up to 1,200 chickens. Nesting houses were built in the middle the entire length of the house and also were mounted on skids. A few years later, they built roosts on either side of the hoop house with the help of a neighbor who welded them together.

Once or twice a week, the hoop house is chained to two tractors on one end and dragged to a green part of the pasture. The chickens eat grass, bugs and anything else they can find on the ground as well as commercial feed and an oyster shell supplement that gives the eggs harder shells. They are not treated with antibiotics or hormones.

The hoop house and a mechanical egg candler and washer were paid for in part with tobacco settlement funds. The candler and washer represented a major turning point in the business. Before they bought the machine, they were taking as many as three hours to wash 30 dozen eggs by hand. Now, they can process and carton a day’s harvest in about 1 ½ hours.

The Schlosnagles raise Australorp, Araucana and Comet breeds. The Comets produce more eggs, but the Australorps “are really nice. They don’t peck each other too much,” Chelsey said.  The Araucanas lay the greenish and bluish eggs that Jared described as “the little gift inside the carton.”

During the school year, Susan and Doug let the chickens out in the morning, and Susan sometimes gathers eggs when the children have after-school activities. Jared and Chelsey candle and wash the day’s production in the evening. They also herd the chickens into their houses and shut the houses after dark each evening. Susan, who does farm appraisals for Farm Credit Services during the week, takes the eggs to the stores and restaurants on Saturday.

Chelsey and Jared said their income ends up in United Citizens Bank, where their father is an officer. “We don’t see much of it,” Chelsey said. The money is being saved for college, cars and the purchase of their own farms someday.

The Schlosnagles also raise Jared’s Free-Range Pasture Beef. They have about 70 cows on their 230-acre farm and produce grass-fed beef that is free of hormones and antibiotics.

Proponents say eggs, meat and dairy products from grass-fed animals have less fat, fewer calories, more vitamins and antioxidants and more omega-3 fatty acids (which are believed to reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease and help brain function) than those from grain-fed animals.

The family earned Master Conservationist honors from the Shelby County Conservation District earlier this year.

Chelsey’s Eggs can be found in Amazing Grace, Burger’s Market, Doll’s Market, Paul’s Markets, Whole Foods and Wild Oats in Louisville and Wild Oats in Lexington. Lilly’s and 211 Clover Lane still serve the Schlosnagles’ eggs.