Selling eggs from your backyard chickens: what each state allows

If your hens are laying more than your family can eat, you're in good company! Eggs are the single most searched thing on Coop. In the last week of September, buyers searched "eggs" 94 times and "egg" another 29, more than meat (46) and beef (41) put together. People want fresh eggs from someone down the road.

The catch is that eggs play by different rules than your sourdough does. In almost every state I've looked at, eggs are not a cottage food, so the cottage food law that lets you sell cookies from your kitchen doesn't cover them at all. Eggs usually fall under the state's egg law, which the Department of Agriculture runs instead of the health department.

The good news is that a lot of those egg laws carve out a simple path for small flocks. Here's how it looks in the six states where Coop has the most sellers.

State by state

Every row comes from our state guides, which link the actual statutes and agency pages: Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Florida and Arizona. Look for the section called "Eggs, meat and dairy."

The pattern worth noticing

Read across that table and two things keep coming up.

Where you sell matters. Several states treat "from my own property, straight to the buyer" very differently from a store shelf or a market booth. Oklahoma is the clearest example. The same eggs can be license free at your front gate and need a license at the farmers market.

Grading matters. In Texas, the line is whether you grade your eggs (sorting them by size and quality the way a store carton does). Ungraded eggs from your own hens, sold to the person who'll eat them, need no license. Once you grade, you need the license.

So before you print a single carton label, ask yourself where the eggs will change hands and whether you're grading them. Those two answers settle most of it.

Where buyers are already looking

Here's the part I find exciting. Coop has enough egg sellers in more than 50 cities to give each of those cities its own fresh eggs page, and the busiest ones look like this:

And then there are places like Denver and Tampa, with just five or six egg sellers each for a whole metro. Searches for eggs come from all over, so if you live somewhere that list is short, your carton might be one of only a handful a buyer sees.

A few things that make egg selling easier

• Sell from home when you can. In Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma, the simplest path in the table above is your own flock, sold directly to the buyer. Pickup at your place fits that neatly.
• Say how many dozen you have. Hens don't lay on a schedule you control. On Coop you can set a quantity and when it's available, so nobody orders a dozen you don't have.
• Give people a rhythm. A regular pickup day (say, Saturday mornings) turns a one-time buyer into a regular. Here's how to set a pickup rhythm.
• Describe what you're selling. Breed, what the hens eat, whether they free range, washed or unwashed. Buyers care, and there's a short lesson on describing food listings.
• Keep them cold. Oklahoma spells out 45°F for market eggs, and it's a good habit anywhere.

Get your eggs in front of neighbors

If your state's rules check out for how you plan to sell, open a storefront on Coop. It takes about two minutes, it's free to start, and the people searching for eggs near you can find your listing right away. (If you're a buyer reading this, the city pages above are the quickest way to find fresh eggs close by!)

This is general information, not legal advice. Egg laws change and some depend on details like grading and where you sell, so confirm with your state's Department of Agriculture before you sell.

Cole Coleman, founder of Coop