How many Eggs did you Sell today?

[blucoondawg]

We have an egg business here in Oregon.

I have 100 hens currently sort of laying as weather permits.  

23 dozen sold to the market last week!  I wholesale my eggs for $5.58 a dozen and they sell for $7.49.  Our eggs are pasture raised and organic.  I have 150 little pullets who will come into lay in Feb and March.  Our hope is that the revenue from these hens will pay for this obsession of mine and employ someone 20 hours a week on the farm for the various projects we have here!

I continue to breed LF English Orpingtons in almost every color (while working on new ones) along with olive eggers and marans for our every growing egg flock!

That is something I have always wanted to do, have a large enough flock to make it somewhat of a business, 5.58 is a good price on the wholesale end if they're only getting 7.50. Id imagine in Oregon you have a completely different demographic in your area, a little more money per capita and a different attitude toward buying decent food products than what I've got to deal with.
Is that what your wholesale flock is comprised of, marans and olive eggers? I should look into what is involved to become organic certified, I haven't seriously considered it simply due to the higher feed cost associated with it and a questionable market though I haven't researched that much in the wholesale end either.

I keep around 50 chickens give or take for the last few years, I've added some each year and now have a fairly diverse group age wise, I want to keep that going and cull the first generation this year minus a couple broodies the rooster and the wife's couple pet hens, then I am trying to decide if I want to do my own hatch for replacements this spring or if I should go another year of ordering some sex links to try to boost my production. My first flock was a mix of dual purpose breeds and they have never really flooded me with eggs.

 

[RickyDean]

Wow that is awesome! Sounds like fun. I didn't want chickens.... my kids did and I said no and daddy said yes. We started with 6, and we now have 36 and a turkey. It sure didn't take me long to get attached. My son keeps reminded me that they are his, which is why we keep getting more. lol The new ones after the original 6 are all mine. But he has been wanting to sell eggs every since we got them. And we have quite a few swaps in our area and a big farmers market as well. So hopefully he is on to something and will stick with it.

AuntNomi
Sounds like you have a little entrepreneur in the making.That's awesome and should be encouraged. It's never too early to teach
kids the value of money and the workings of business. It will stick with them for life. At 3rd grade I was selling Daylight donuts
door to door and then got a paper route and would get up at 5am to roll and deliver papers. That work ethic stuck with me all my life
as I always had a job and paid cash for my first car, a 1968 Camaro.

My thinking is that if I sell a dozen eggs for what you can buy a dozen for at Walmart, people can't go wrong with a purchase from
me as the eggs are fresher, tastier and way more healthy. Whats not to like about that? I will not lower my prices to compete
wirh others as it always drives the prices down to the point you can't break even or you are losing money. That's not the way a good
business does things. Value and quaility is what I sell and you can't get either from the chain stores. Therefore I WILL NOT
compromise in my already fair pricing. Others should do the same and generally the lowballers will come around and figure out
they are cutting their own throat. Best regards!

RickyDean

 

[AuntNomi]

AuntNomi
Sounds like you have a little entrepreneur in the making.That's awesome and should be encouraged. It's never too early to teach
kids the value of money and the workings of business. It will stick with them for life. At 3rd grade I was selling Daylight donuts
door to door and then got a paper route and would get up at 5am to roll and deliver papers. That work ethic stuck with me all my life
as I always had a job and paid cash for my first car, a 1968 Camaro.

My thinking is that if I sell a dozen eggs for what you can buy a dozen for at Walmart, people can't go wrong with a purchase from
me as the eggs are fresher, tastier and way more healthy. Whats not to like about that? I will not lower my prices to compete
wirh others as it always drives the prices down to the point you can't break even or you are losing money. That's not the way a good
business does things. Value and quaility is what I sell and you can't get either from the chain stores. Therefore I WILL NOT
compromise in my already fair pricing. Others should do the same and generally the lowballers will come around and figure out
they are cutting their own throat. Best regards!

RickyDean

Thanks RickyDean! I have always been very proud of both my boys. They have always done small things to earn money rather then ask for it. And they appreciate their belongings because they worked for some of them. He loves the chickens and is very responsible as far as caring for them. He helps feed and water in the early morning before he even has to be up for school, and then as soon as he gets home he goes straight out to check on them and make sure they still have feed. He loves to hold one of our hens that he named Stagecoach Mary. He is always amazed at how soft she is. And he always helps me mix there FF. And he and I hatched 6 chicks in November. He is very proud of that. He gets his regular driver license in March so that's when he intends to start selling eggs, he also says he'd like to hatch chicks to sell. He and I went around this evening to family and gave out 8 dozen eggs, so his grandparents told him they were going to buy him 12 new chicks and a 50 lb bag of feed. He was super happy about that.

 

[AuntNomi]

Well my son made his first sell of the eggs! He sold 5 dozen today @ $3.00 per dozen. And she told him she would take 5 dozen every week, and to check with his parents and make sure we were ok with the price, she's actually a friend of ours. But he's super proud about it!

 

[perrypogue]

Unfortunately I just started with too few chickens ... 11 ... then learned a hard lesson with a varmint attack which has left me with six laying hens that are almost eight months old. But I'm catching up as quick as I can as I just added 40 RIR pullet chicks. I have two large (12x12) coops with a 12x24 pen between the coops.

But I've had a new opportunity that may work out. Just a week ago I pulled through my feed store buying more feed and got into a conversation with the manager about how much I have enjoyed building the coops. She told me that if I'd build them she would sell them ... so I've almost finished building a 8x8 coop that I plan to leave at the feed store as a sample. It's built strong with 4x4 posts, 2x6x8 lumber and then wood fence pickets for the walls and a ten roof. This has been the best I could think of to build a strong coop at the lowest cost. I've got $350 in materials alone ... I've decided to ask $599 for the coop built on the customers property. And I'll build any size should they want a different size. It takes me two weeks to build this coop.

I've got about 2 more days until it's completely finished and the 'for sale' sign goes up. I'm very interested of course to see what the demand will be. She sounded positive about the idea and said she sold 1500 chicks last year. The is a small rural community in west Texas.

I'm going to move my 6 hens and my rooster into the sample coop ... just seems to me that the total package will present best.
Plus I want to split my 40 new chicks between my existing coops.

Selling at $599 I'll have to sell over two coops to recover my costs in the sample but with my laying hens moved into the sample coop I suppose it's being used and not just idle money.

Anyway, I love building coops and raising chickens so I'm having fun ...

 

[sweetbeak]

Hi all, I live in Trentham Victoria and have a lot of fertile eggs for sale. Lavender arancuna, black orphington, olive eggers, silkie bantams, Plymouth rock and rhode island reds. Eggs are $2 each and sell minimum of 6, happy to post or drop off in the Trentham, Daylesford and Macedon area. Contact me at [email protected] if you are keen. I have about a 95% success rate. Attached are some photos, would love to share some of my beautiful babies with others!

 

[AuntNomi]

Sold 5 dozen today to a friend, she wants 5 dozen a week for now on. I am super happy about that!

 

[Spartan22]

Sold 4 dozen today for $16.00 to a coworker. We have an outstanding order of 12 dozens per week w/c hard to fulfill unless I plunged into "chicken math"

 

[AuntNomi]

Sold 4 dozen today for $16.00 to a coworker. We have an outstanding order of 12 dozens per week w/c hard to fulfill unless I plunged into "chicken math"

I feel ya! I am going Sunday to a local Swap to hopefully buy a few more laying hens. I only have 7 currently laying. So I get either 6 or 7 eggs a day so it takes me a little more then a week to get her eggs. I don't want her to go some where else so I gotta get more hens. Plus I love the chickens, so really its just more fun for me.

 

[Spartan22]

I feel ya! I am going Sunday to a local Swap to hopefully buy a few more laying hens. I only have 7 currently laying. So I get either 6 or 7 eggs a day so it takes me a little more then a week to get her eggs.

Wow! 6-7 out of 7? That's pretty good!
My problem, I only want to raise my own hens out of baby chicks, so it will take 4-5 months for me to get more eggs. I like raising them without the help of meds and hormones.