A good position to be in ?

[svh]

Last year I gave away dozens of dozens of eggs to friends and neighbors, and felt them out about selling them eggs in the coming spring. I told them $3 bucks a dozen next year, and most said they would probably not want to buy eggs from me in the future.

Why would they, when they got them for free ?

In August of last year, I got 10 more pullets, 3 Starlight Green eggers, 3 Prairie Bluebell blue eggers, 2 Barred Rock, and 2 Black Sex Links, to add to my flock of 5 Silver Laced Wyandotte hens, 1 Barred Rock hen, and an Easter Egger cockerel, bringing my flock up to 17. Well I lost one blue egger, but the rest of the new pullets are now laying like gang busters, and I'm getting 7 to 9 eggs daily !

I sold 4 dozen beautiful, multi colored, stamped (more on that later) eggs to 3 different people in the last week, and apparently, word spread like peanut butter, (creamy) because I have been overwhelmed with requests for fresh, stamped, free range eggs !!! E-mails, phone calls, people coming down the driveway ..... One guy wants all them all to resell ..... Not !

I don't have near enough eggs to satisfy a fraction of my (potential) customers !!! I think part of the demand is the novelty of these stamps ..... That, and I bought a mess of clear cartons, to show off the eggs. I got the stamps here. Sniggle Sloth Scroll down the page for egg stamps. I bought 13 of them, and food grade black ink as well.

The most popular seem to be the skull and crossbones, and the biohazard, followed by "butt nugget". I need a bit of work on my stamping technique !

Also, I'm the only one selling fresh eggs for miles, as my community has a no chicken rule. Cornering the market, I am !!! I have an exemption, kinda grandfathered in, you might say ..... Or something like that .....

Anyway, here's my presentation that they are blowing up my phone for .....

Thanks for lookin.

 

[MissE]

I don't have the color variety (just varying shades of cream to terracotta brown) or the stamps, but I have a hard time keeping up with demand. I get 12-16 eggs a day from 17 hens. I've thought about increasing the flock, but that means more feeders, bigger coop, bigger winter time run, etc. It is cool when they are at least paying for their feed bill. I will get a few new ones a year to replace retired stock, but believe me, the temptation is there to go bigger.

For you it may be more feasible if you have a captive market and such beautiful eggs. Good luck!

 

[David61]

I'm getting 5-7 from my 10 girls with the winter molt. Before it was 8 or 9 a day. Only one day did i go 10 for 10.
I get $3 a dozen from people I try and give them too.
I was charging $3 before the flu started but i started giving them away to people who were out of work or taking a loss in business . I'm getting leg bands. You don't lay, you get a band. Three bands in a week and its a good chance your spot on the roost will be going to a late May sussex hatchling .

 

[aart]

I hope you're charging more than $3dz

 

[HeatherKellyB]

I hope you're charging more than $3dz

Agree!!! That reminds me that I seriously need to make some phone calls to get rid of/sale eggs. My flats hold 30 eggs each and I have 6 full flats! This past summer I was selling to one man who would purchase all the eggs I'd sell him. Then he'd sell them to other people (no idea what he was charging but he was giving me $2 dozen). I wrote a date on each egg and put them into cartons that he would switch out. Now, I have as many bantam eggs as LF eggs, so no idea if anyone will want them. Long story short, if I was able to get $2 per dozen for eggs in recycled/switched out cartons with a date written on each egg, you should absolutely be getting more than $3 per dozen. Have you broken everything down and figured out your profit margin? Please make sure you are making a profit on everything you're putting into this, because in my opinion, $3 per dozen is a legit steal

 

[svh]

I hope you're charging more than $3dz

I already told people $3 a dozen ..... Dang it ! Maybe I can bump it up to $4 when the eggs are a bit bigger, as they are smaller pullet eggs.

Agree!!! That reminds me that I seriously need to make some phone calls to get rid of/sale eggs. My flats hold 30 eggs each and I have 6 full flats! This past summer I was selling to one man who would purchase all the eggs I'd sell him. Then he'd sell them to other people (no idea what he was charging but he was giving me $2 dozen). I wrote a date on each egg and put them into cartons that he would switch out. Now, I have as many bantam eggs as LF eggs, so no idea if anyone will want them. Long story short, if I was able to get $2 per dozen for eggs in recycled/switched out cartons with a date written on each egg, you should absolutely be getting more than $3 per dozen. Have you broken everything down and figured out your profit margin? Please make sure you are making a profit on everything you're putting into this, because in my opinion, $3 per dozen is a legit steal

Profit ? Hahaha !!!

Sorry to laugh, but with everything I have into this hobby, I won't turn a profit for years to come, if ever !

I am gonna see if I can't get another dollar from them though ..... If I can recover the feed costs, that would satisfy me.

 

[aart]

I already told people $3 a dozen ..... Dang it ! Maybe I can bump it up to $4 when the eggs are a bit bigger, as they are smaller pullet eggs.

Oops!
Hard to raise the price, especially by 25%.
How much did those fancy cartons cost ya?

If I can recover the feed costs, that would satisfy me.

That was my goal from the start, which I achieved the first 5 years.
Even covered bedding costs a couple years.
The rest is 'hobby'.

 

[svh]

Oops!
Hard to raise the price, especially by 25%.
How much did those fancy cartons cost ya?

That was my goal from the start, which I achieved the first 5 years.
Even covered bedding costs a couple years.
The rest is 'hobby'.

I got 50 for around $25, so about 50 cents apiece.

 

[mtma]

Those looks cool.