New Jersey Henhouses Sell Duck, Goose, Even Ostrich Eggs WANTAGE, N.J. - Most mornings outside the gates of Tier Haus Farms here, several cars drive up to investigate the contents of an ordinary-looking cooler. Inside are eggs, freshly collected from beyond the gates by Carolyn Gerdes, an owner of the hilly, 70-acre property. Instead of having a traditional farm stand, Ms. Gerdes accepts orders by text, e-mail and phone for eggs, then leaves them for her regular customers to pick up when she is not available to hand them off directly. 549 Goffle Road, Wyckoff (201) 444-3238 gofflepoultry.com WHAT THEY SELL Chicken eggs, $2.30 to $2.85 a dozen; duck eggs, $1 apiece; goose eggs, $3; quail eggs, $4.95 for a package of 10; ostrich eggs, when available, $30 apiece. 484 Bunker Hill Road Princeton (908) 359-5218 griggstownquailfarm.com. WHAT THEY SELL Quail eggs, $6.50 for 15; pheasant eggs, $6 a dozen, are sometimes available from April to June. 65 Big Spring Road Hardyston (973) 202-9344 roamingacres.com Call ahead to order. WHAT THEY SELL Ostrich eggs, $30 apiece. 68 Unionville Road Wantage (973) 362-8217 Orders accepted by phone, text or e-mail at tierhausfarms@aol.com. WHAT THEY SELL Duck eggs, $1 each; goose eggs, $2.50; guinea hen eggs, 75 cents; chicken eggs, $4 a dozen. This is also ostrich egg season, as Ty Appelbaum, 5, can attest. His father, Todd Appelbaum, owns Roaming Acres Farm in Hardyston, N.J. Roaming Acres Farm has 200 ostriches, raised mostly for meat. Their eggs fetch $30 apiece. The thing about eggs - and people who buy them right from a farm know this - is that you really can tell when they're fresh. They taste much different," Ms. Gerdes, 43, said. That may be true, but in the case of Tier Haus Farms, the appeal is more than freshness. About 20 percent of the customers are also seeking variety. Like several other egg producers in New Jersey, Ms. Gerdes sells alternative eggs - eggs that are not laid by chickens. "I'd say that for every five dozen chicken eggs I sell, I sell a dozen duck eggs," Ms. Gerdes said. And this time of year, when goose eggs are available - laying season generally lasts from mid- to late April to late June - "I'll sell around five goose eggs for every five dozen chicken eggs." Each spring, she also sells a few guinea hen eggs, which are smaller than chicken eggs and have a very hard shell. Ms. Gerdes, who maintains a flock of about 80 birds of various species, has operated Tier Haus, whose main business is raising sheep and goats for meat, since 2006; she started selling goose and duck eggs around 2008. Demand has steadily increased each year, she said during a recent walk through the noisy henhouse, where she paused at a nest to collect a still-warm white duck egg. Later, she would wash it and deposit it in a carton of a special size, stamped with the "Jersey Fresh" logo. Michael Westendorf, a cooperative extension specialist and associate professor in the department of animal sciences at Rutgers University, said that small, noncommercial egg producers throughout the state were noticing an uptick in demand for fresh eggs. "Free-range has been important for a while," Mr. Westendorf said. But lately "we're seeing a lot of interest in niche markets," like duck, goose, quail and ostrich eggs, he said. Duck eggs, which are slightly larger than extra-large chicken eggs, and goose eggs, which are about three times the size of jumbo chicken eggs, are prized by bakers, Ms. Gerdes said, because they have a higher yolk-to-white ratio and are therefore richer. "You bake a poundcake with one and you can see the difference in color - it'll be much more yellow-orange," she said. Duck eggs are also common in Asian cooking. Farmers like Ms. Gerdes and Joe Silvestri, owner of the two-acre Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff, attribute the increased popularity of nonchicken eggs in part to allergies. "A lot of times people who are allergic to chicken eggs can eat duck eggs," said Mr. Silvestri, 55, who packages duck and quail eggs for sale in the farm's on-site market year-round. Mr. Silvestri estimated that each week he sold 900 to 1,000 dozen chicken eggs and 10 dozen duck eggs, which he described as having "a strong yolk flavor." He also sells goose and quail eggs. Mr. Silvestri also carries the occasional ostrich egg, which he obtains from another farmer and sells with the contents drained. People will buy them just for the shell. They like to decorate them," he said. Local cooks wishing to buy an ostrich egg for eating - one equals roughly two dozen chicken eggs - are not out of luck, though. From April until early June, Todd Appelbaum, owner of Roaming Acres Farm in Hardyston, gathers about 10 eggs a day from his flock of 200 ostriches and sells them for $30 each at the Montclair Farmers Market, the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan, and directly from Roaming Acres. He sells them to offset what he said were considerable feed costs; Roaming Acres raises ostriches mainly for the meat. The taste of an ostrich egg is not dissimilar to the taste of a chicken egg, said Mr. Appelbaum, 41, during a walk around the sprawling, 69-acre farm, where he also raises bison, emus and Berkshire pigs. The appeal is mostly novelty, he said. That may also explain the popularity of quail eggs, which are "around the size of a large gumball," in the words of Matthew Sytsema, chef at the 70-acre Griggstown Quail Farm and Market in Princeton. Griggstown Quail sells about 1,000 dozen a week year-round at an on-site store and at farmers markets. Its customers include wholesalers and restaurants, like the Bernards Inn in Bernardsville. The farm also sells pheasant eggs from April to June, when they are available. The difference in taste between a quail egg and a chicken egg is "very minimal," Mr. Sytsema, 31, said. He has prepared a short spiel for the benefit of curious customers who ask questions at farmers markets: "I tell them, anything you can do with a chicken egg you can do with a quail egg. But chefs usually use them for appetizers, because they look good. Sometimes he wishes quail eggs were not as appealing as they are, he added. "We take a lot of orders for them for parties," he said. They're so little, and they're not the easiest things to peel. Cooking ostrich eggs presents different challenges, Mr. Appelbaum said. The shells can be difficult to crack, because they are thicker and harder than the shells of chicken eggs. "You also have to find a really big frying pan," he said.