How do you make a profit selling eating eggs?

[greathorse]

If you want to save for college, your best strategy is to compute the cost of raising chickens and put the difference between that and buying eggs from someone in the bank.

Unless you have very good practices and the highest production breeds you will not have a positive cash flow with selling eggs. Your breeds are not known to be very good layers to begin with. If you have 24 marans and other dual purpose breeds you will be lucky to average 12 eggs a day from 24 birds. You will have some good days and you will have some 4 egg days as well.

Now I did give my son some birds and the coop and every thing else required, including most of the feed and gave him the proceeds from chicks and eggs if he took care of them. It was a bit like a government subsidy program. LOL. He managed to put a few dollars in the bank for future college and savings, but had he been responsible for all the cost he would have needed to dip in the college fund to manage his chicken hobby.

 

[Backyard Farm]

Darkmatter,

I agree!! that is my gain from my birds... well said.

 

[Penturner]

This is meant to be a serious reply to your effort to make money with your chickens. you need to sell things to the people that are really spending money on chickens or chicken stuff. and that is chicken keepers. think about it. one person with even a small back yard flock will spend more money in one year on feeders. waterers . medication. incubators. coops. runs. toys. treats and chicks than any regular household will spend on all chicken related products in a decade. well okay that may be stretching it a bit but only a little bit. The money is moving among the chicken folk. So that is where you need to focus your search for opportunities to make money. As many have already said. they make money on fertile eggs. those fall in that to the chicken folk category. I see the same thing in regard to my pen making. the money is not in selling pens. it is selling pen makers stuff to make pens. Breed a better chicken. design a better waterer. whatever chicken keepers will find worth buying. then there is a pretty good chance of making some money worth being worried about. Good luck with College by the way.

 

[tnchickenut]

Free ranging is not only better for your pocket, but better for the birds. That is what I do. My breeders are only allowed to free range one breed at a time, but the layers for eatting eggs are allowed out everyday. REALLY cuts down on the feed if you have enough area.

And alot of others are right... if you don't enjoy them for being them... you won't make so much money you can retire (or go to college) off of eatting eggs alone. You also need to really study and keep notes on how they are laying. If you are serious about it, you shouldn't keep birds that don't lay well... but that is the buisness side. I personally can't get rid of a bird just because they aren't laying as much as they should. It really depends on why you have them.

Hope that helps a bit. You also need to understand that "free range" and "organic" draws more money... also giving too many treats slows down laying. There are all sorts of factors.

 

[Texasboy4ever]

I sell my large eggs for $1.50 and X-large and Jumbo for $2.00. I have yet to make any money at best I pay for about 2/3 of the feed. Coops waterers feeders all that I have paid out of my pocket. I even get good prices on feed from a local mill $8.00 for laying mash and $8.25 for grower starter and its all natural. But I don't think I could get anymore than what i do on eggs. A lot of people care more about price than quality in their eggs. I do have some people that would be willing to pay more for fresh eggs but not enough

 

[JennsPeeps]

We just spent about $800 on building a brand new coop:
http://pintsizedpioneering.blogspot.com/2010/04/pioneering-can-really-suck.html (I was in a cranky mood when I wrote that).

Hubbie figured out that the 9 girls will have to lay 200 dozen eggs in order to pay us back. I sell eggs for $4/dozen.

If their current rate of production of ~36 eggs/week were to hold, which it won't, we could theoretically come out even in 66 weeks. That doesn't account for the 50lb/$16 of food they eat monthly, nor the $15 of litter we go through every so often.

So, no, chicken-keeping is not a way to make money.

 

[terri9630]

You also have to consider the area your in. Around here eggs are brown or white. You can't give away a colored egg. The health food stores that buy them in this area won't buy them becaue the customers won't buy them. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but around here they think the blue and green eggs were laid "rotten". Of course they may just be clueless...... I've had people ask why I don't bleach my brown eggs white the the stores do and they think I'm lying when I tell them that those chicks I just bought will be eating size in just 6-8 weeks.

 

[gckiddhouse]

You need an Ameraucana rooster. If he is over your Marans, they will produce Olive Eggers. Very popular right now. You can sell the fertile eggs!!! $30 per dozen is way better than $3 per dozen.

 

[slewis]

I have had chickens for almost a year now. I have over 100.... and I love it! I sell the extra eggs for $2.00/dozen. I brought in about 140.00 last month. The feed cost me about $80.00. I Feed them a fair amount of wheat that I bought for $3.00/ 50 lbs. so it is really cheap feed. The hens would most likely lay more if they were fed more laying mash, but then it costs more. If you figure in the cost of the coop, the cost of the hens you wouldn't make much of a profit, if any... but you also have to figure in how much you save by not having to buy eggs, so all in all, I do make a little money... but I do it cause I love it!

 

[A1 Steak Sauce]

You don't. You'll spend more money on them than you think, just to have them eat all the food and sneak off to the other side of the field to lay their eggs in the tallest weeds they can find lol. Of course, mine free range (most of them) and all of them get a lot of kitchen scraps, so that cuts down food costs quite a bit. Sure, I sell a few eggs and birds here and there, but I'm lucky if I get anywhere near breaking even.