01993 868 584 The past few weeks have been a hard grind, with a few highs and lows…
It didn’t start quite so well. One Sunday morning, I decided to mend a nest box, rushed into the hen house with my tools, tripped and fell through the floor. Several hours in minor injuries and an arm X-ray later, I was relieved to discover it was just bruising. The hens were fine too. Gemma gave me a firm telling-off about tackling the job on my own on a Sunday. I have taken note.
Next came a split egg belt in another hen house, which meant eggs were dropping beneath the floor. After welding the belt back together, I put on my overalls, fetched my grandad’s coal shovel and crawled underneath to clear them up, passing buckets up to the team. At 11am on a Tuesday, shovel in hand and hens overhead, I briefly considered all the other things I could have been doing. Still, there’s satisfaction in knowing everything is cleared up and the problem is fixed.
Then came Friday night’s storm. At 6pm, I was looking forward to a takeaway and an early night when Russ called while locking up the hens. He’d discovered that a wooden panel had blown off a hen house. Fifteen minutes later, my work clothes were back on and we were out in the pouring rain, putting in emergency screws and using heavy fence posts to secure it until the rain eased on Sunday. There’s never a dull moment on the farm.
Our new website
Our new website is live at www.mayfieldeggs.co.uk. We’re receiving fewer emails about delivery changes, which I hope means you’re finding it easier to manage your orders. There are still a few things to improve, including the postcode checker, which I’m currently fixing. Please be assured that we are not changing any delivery days: your eggs will arrive on their usual day.
If you’re having any problems with the website, or have suggestions for improving it, please let us know.
A lovely mention in The Telegraph
The week ended on a much brighter note, with our Mayfield Melior eggs described in The Telegraph as “a prized egg from Oxfordshire developed for use in professional kitchens”.
For the past three months, we’ve been delivering eggs every Thursday morning to Cépage in Notting Hill. Gaston, the chef and owner, first tried our eggs at Estelle Manor and contacted me to ask if we could supply his restaurant. It was fantastic to see his “Melior Oeuf Mayonnaise, caviar” featured in William Sitwell’s review. A proud moment for our small farm team — and congratulations to everyone at Cépage on their five-star review.
To answer the obvious question: how does a Mayfield Melior egg compare with the eggs you get delivered? If you have our large or medium eggs delivered, you get the same rich, natural yolk colour, achieved by including marigold and paprika in the hens’ feed.
XL eggs account for less than 5% of the eggs our hens lay over their lifetime. We cannot separate these by flock during grading, so our XL trays contain a mix. Small eggs are generally laid by younger hens as they first come into lay, when yolk colour can vary more.
Pumpkins for the hens
I’ve promised the hens their annual pumpkin treat! We’ve been collecting pumpkins for the past five years, so when you’ve finished with yours, please leave it beside your egg delivery spot for our drivers to bring back to the farm. We will check them to ensure that they are free from mould, paint, decorations and candle wax, and then chop them up, spread them across the fields and let the hens enjoy them.
Thank you, as always, for your support.
Gemma & James