Mujeres Con Huevos
Mujeres con Huevos
Eggs of the highest quality, produced by happy, healthy chickens in yards or running free, produced with love by….Mujeres con Huevos.
Our Project
Mujeres con Huevos is a sustainable development project which seeks to support the lives of rural women who lack income: Women organizing to collect enough eggs so they can supply bigger and more distant markets; women inviting the urban consumer to enjoy a healthy and very nutritious product while at the same time protecting the environment.
Because the deterioration of the environment is intimately related to rural poverty and because discrimination against women has contributed to this poverty. Women participating in Mujeres con Huevos both earn money from the project and and have a role in decision-making.
How We Work
To begin a project, the women of a community organize into a group. As a group, the women buy eggs from the individual members and learn how to produce more and better eggs. Every group of women has a committee which is in charge of inspecting the eggs as they are received and of supervising the production system.
To produce good eggs requires healthy hens, and to do this, it’s necessary to understand and respect their nature : hens live in coops rather than in cages because they need a space where they can scratch and a rooster to keep them company. Their feed is free of animal products, animal wastes, hormones, additives and GMO’s
The hens wander freely either in the chicken coop or free. They eat locally produced and milled whole grains, plus grass and insects which they find themselves.
Quality control
Strict quality control means we can assure the consumer that the egg is fresh and of the best quality. Each woman marks her eggs with her group’s number and her personal number so they can be traced back to their origin.
The size of the egg varies depending on the age and size of the hen. The eggs have different colors and shades because all the hens are different. The variety of colors shows the great diversity of the hens which Mujeres con Huevos own.
Our women’s eggs compared to agroindustry eggs
| Characteristic | From Mujeres con Huevos | From Conventional Eggs |
| Living space | Hen house and yard | Cage 30cm x 30 cm |
| Feed | Corn, wheat, leaves, bugs | Agricultural and industrial wastes |
| Genetic diversity | The hens are of many colors and sizes | Large-quantity producers, select breeds, little genetic diversity |
| Egg’s appearance | White, brown, red or blue, of all sizes, depending on the hen. | Same size and color |
| Egg’s quality | High in protein, flavorful, fertile | High in cholesterol, fish flavored, infertile |
| Yolk | Very yellow and firm | Pale or dyed, watery |
| Social life | Hens live in a group with other hens, roosters and chicks. | Hens peck at their neighbors |
| Sex life | One rooster for every six to ten hens | Egg production is determined by the type of food these hens have no sex life |
| Genetically modified crops | Hens are not fed with products imported from countries which permit the production of GMO’s | Many grains and high protein feds are probably GMO’s. Oh well, to whom does it matter? |
| Origins | The hens sit roost on the eggs, pull out the chicks and raise them. | The hens have been genetically selected so that they don’t want to get broody and their eggs aren’t fertile. The chicks come from an incubator and are raised in masses. |
| Contamination | Hens’ wastes are used as compost. | Industrial egg production units produce bad smells and many flies. |
| Organization | Mujeres con Huevos learn to collaborate for a common goal and the profits are shared by everyone. | agroindustries are run as businesses, hence they have to think of their stockholders first |