About

Duck Eggs

There are a lot of reasons to love duck eggs, it's a shame that they're not more readily available.  They are similar to other poultry eggs (in that they have a yolk and albumen). Duck eggs are larger than chicken eggs and have thicker shells and membranes, giving them a longer shelf life and making them harder to crack. They are richer and smoother than chicken eggs because they have a larger ratio of yolk to albumen and a higher fat content.  And if that wasn't enough, they are more nutrient dense (higher amounts of protein, minerals and most vitamins) than chicken eggs. Below are answers to some of the questions we get about our duck eggs.

What do your ducks eat?

Our ducks spend dawn till dusk on pasture, eating nutritious insects and greens. We supplement their pasture diet with local fermented feed.

How do I use duck eggs?

You can use duck eggs just like you'd use any other egg. There are just a couple of considerations to make:

Use duck eggs exactly like you'd use a chicken, quail or turkey egg, but remember to account for the size difference.

They contain less water than chicken eggs, so don't overcook or the whites will get rubbery.

Though they can be harder to peel than chicken eggs, they make delicious deviled eggs and are well worth the effort.

Why are duck eggs more expensive than chicken eggs?

Ducks have different annual production rates, feed and husbandry requirements and labor inputs because they are waterfowl. Ducks eat more than chickens and they require substantially more square footage of housing than chickens do because most breeds ducks don't roost. These and other things make them more costly to produce than chicken eggs.

The Farm

We are always working to better connect the wild, natural systems on our farm with the cultivated ones to prevent erosion, water loss and better balance all the systems on our farm.

Growing practices

What we grow is important but even more important than that is how we grow it.  Orange Star Farm is committed to ecologically sound growing and relies on the natural systems of the soil and nature. We don't use any synthetic herbicides/pesticides or fertilizers and strive to make our growing systems as closed as possible. We hope that all of our products, whether produce or eggs, speak for themselves. We are deeply committed to organic practices, land stewardship and animal welfare so feel free to contact us or ask us questions if you have them.

the land

Place matters. We farm along Woods Creek not far from where it meets the Skykomish River. The Snohomish River begins a short distance from there at the confluence of the Snoqualmie River and the Skykomish. These waterways and the land surrounding them are the ancestral lands of the Tulalip Tribes - the direct descendants of and the successors in interest to the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish and other allied bands signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. The preservation and ecological resilience of this land so that future generations can live resiliently here is the most important part of our work on this farm. We tend to Orange Star and she tends to us.