8-year-old Hampden girl egg-cited about Emmy’s Eggs

HAMPDEN, Maine (WABI) - Raising chickens is a growing trend in Maine.

There’s a third grader in Hampden that’s grown the hobby into a budding and quite frankly, egg-cellent business.

Every day, you’ll find 8-year-old Emmelynn Haffod taking care of her chickens

She considers all 14 to be her pets.

“My favorite one is Izzy,” says Emmelynn, pointing to the white one.

“She doesn’t let me pick her up though.”

Emmelynn enjoys collecting the dozen or so eggs that her pets lay every day.

“Look at that,” says Emmelynn, placing a brown egg into a carton, “Perfect. And now we have a dozen.”

She closes the lid. “We get different kinds a lot,” Emmelynn’s says. “We get blue ones, white ones, tan ones and then dotted ones.”

At first, Emmelynn’s father took the eggs to work, to give out to co-workers.

“But then more and more kept coming,” says Vaughn Hafford.

So Vaughn decided to build an farm stand egg box at the end of their driveway on the Patterson Road in Hampden. Each Friday morning, he and his daughter load it up with freshly laid eggs

“Someone’s in their car, they look at the sign, it says available, so they stop in the driveway. And then they open it up,” explains Emmelynn.

And it turns out, folks really like Emmy’s Eggs.

“She just can’t keep up with them, everybody wants them,” says Vaughn, his wife April nodding in agreement. “People keep messaging me- are there any eggs, are there any eggs?”

So- there was really only one solution. The Haffords are now also raising 14 baby chicks.

“It’s been fun for the kids to be able to have different animals and learn how to take care of them,” says April Hafford.

Right now, Emmelynn sets out about 70-80 eggs a week. But that will most likely double once the new chicks begin producing.

And Emmelynn says, she’s not done yet.

“Next, we’re getting goats,” she says, walking out of the chicken coop. “I’m going to get them to get goats.”

Her dad smiles, then replies, “No, we’re not.”

Copyright 2023 WABI. All rights reserved.