California - Northern

[MonsterClucker]

Thanks for insight chiqita. I learned a lot from reading that.

 

[zooweemama]

Zoo, I sell 70% of my chicks off of CL. We sell quail, marans, silkies, Oe's and whatever crazy eggs I hatch from swaps ( pheasants, buttons, hopefully some of those keets will hatch) and non silked silkies and barnyard mixes.

I sell them from 8-20 bucks.

HOWEVER I'm in silicone valley, and sell designer chickens. We actually sell more quail then anything else, mostly because I can sex them at 8 weeks or so. If I could sell sexed chicks Id sell 5x more ( sending hearts to on! Lol) . And, quail are apartment birds you can have on your porch, and when you think screw this! I'm done with quail! I'm going on vacation! You can have dinner.

I'd bet the Marans will be easy to sell ( especially if you offer to take back the boys) but Marans eggs are not an easy hatch. I have 2 hens that are about 100% hatch, and the rest are spotty. The chicks make it to lock down and either don't come out, pip in the wrong place, or don't absorb the yolk. I don't wonder if FCBM's in the US are a wee bit inbread. None of my roosters and hens are related, or even bread within the same 1/2 of the country, so it's not my stock being close. I only send out 3 types of eggs for swaps now because the bigger ones i worry about hatching.

We ended up with about 20 extra oe cockerels and we are going to eat em at 20 weeks. The biggest issue I have is they start to crow, and we can hear them even if the neighbors cant. They may not make it to 20 weeks. They however have been crowing MUCH later then the full breed Marans, they seem to start early. The oe's were a bust for selling, starter people didn't like the idea of a crossed bird. I sold them to people buying other chicks from me or real chicken people.

IMO, you may have trouble selling your orphies unless people are already coming for Marans and want variety. You are competing with sexed hatchery birds, and people will do a lot to not get roos. I did get some orphingtons in a swap and sold out, but no one wanted just them, they got them as a pretty extra ( they were a weird gold color, almost a glowing orange, go figure) .

You are in a more rural area, and people might be looking for different things. I now offer to take roosters back if people get stuck ( don't ask me what I'm going to do with silkie roos,!) Ive actually re homed about 10 roos so far but I'm guessing we are towards the end of the line and we will be eating a lot of returned roos. Ill keep trying for the ones that are special pets, but only so many homes around. I'm also a fairly good sales person and have the patience to deal with 1/2 the people who email not showing back up. I have only had one creepy guy show up who I was a bit worried about, and he was more of an eco nut then anything else. glad he didn't come back to pick up birds. He was going to just abandon the boys around his house, they would have just starved to death and I didn't want to tell him to piss off at my house alone.

I pay for my feed and egg costs, and make money, but its a part time job. But staging relies on people putting houses up for sale, and that is slow, so its a fun side and I get to hatch stuff.

Thanks so much for all that! When you say you offer to take back the roosters- do you give them pullets in exchange (ouch) or just take them back so they don't have to deal re-homing? Also- bio-security makes me nervous for offering to take back the roosters. I wouldn't want the 'take backs' anywhere NEAR my personal stock at all. What if they bring something home you know?

I won't be hatching using an incubator (at this time, maybe I will change my mind in the future but I do not fancy brooding chicks. i know some people love it, but i really do not.) but letting the hens sit on them- whatever broody I can shove them under. If I only get a couple chicks every now and then- I am personally ok with that because at the end of the day I am really doing this for me and my family. The extras are something I have to bother myself to get rid of and figured charging a modest amount would help offset feed costs occasionally. Same thing with eggs- I want a surplus. Mainly to ensure that MY family has enough to eat. But I would like to sell off extra eggs so I can again- offset feed costs. It would also be lovely to be able to give a friend eggs when times are tough for them.

I would not want people coming to my house. Or at the very least they can stand at my gate and get what they need. For bio-security reasons I do not want people walking around my birds and possibly tracking in disease/bacteria my birds might get sick from. Probably paranoid of me. But spending as much as I did buying these high quality chicks and feeding them for 6 months with no reward...I can not afford to start over. I would have to start over with hatchery quality if I even choose to start over at all.

 

[zooweemama]

EEs and Marans should be easy to sell.

The national average for free range eggs is 5 to $8.00. Sell them for $4 or $5 dollars per dozen since Redding is a depressed area.

Ron

I see people selling eggs on CL for $2/dozen and $3/dozen. Do I price myself to compete with that? Or rather I more of the mind that a higher price tag will catch the attention of people and many people think if something costs a little more- it's like better. So I wouldn't mind selling then for about $4/dozen for the chicken eggs and $6/doz for duck eggs. I also plan to add supplements to my feed- like flax etc.

11 ducks laying- should average about 4/week per bird (likely more though- low balling it)
14 hens laying- 3/week per bird (heritage strains lay less)
= 86 eggs a week (approx)/ 8-9 dozen a week

(when they are ALL laying lol) Umm...wow that's a lot of eggs huh? haha!

Some weeks will be 100 and likely some week 60...I think it will vary year round. We personally eat 2-3 dozen eggs a week (I do not buy a lot of mixes so most of my cooking is from scratch). Some weeks we eat a dozen and I have had some weeks where consume 4 dozen! LOL (those are french toast for dinner day, then deviled eggs...that's 2 dozen eggs for us right there for 2 meals of those)

IN Spring my one lone goose will be laying eggs too. Only about 15-20 during breeding season and they stop laying until the next year. So Spring will be fun!

 

[ronott1]

Quote: Get customers and set up a facebook page. Once your customers try your eggs they will not want the $2.00 eggs from CL. I know because there is a co worker her that buys two dozen a week from me instead of the guy she used to get them from. Mine are way better because of what I feed them. No one can come out ahead or even pay for the feed at $2.00 per dozen, so the hens are usually not well taken care of.

On the facebook page, make a big deal about all you do for them! Remember to quote the Omega 3 studies too and post pictures of your flock! Have them notify you when the want eggs. You will probably wind up with a waiting list.

Good luck!

Ron

 

[ronott1]

Amy Beth and other egg sellers,

One thing you could do is give a half dozen to families in your church. Tell them the first one is free but the rest will cost $X.00 per dozen

I gave a half dozen to each the staff in my Dept and now three of them buy eggs from me.

bye,

Ron

 

[Chooklet]

And just for fun...shoot me now because I swore I would NOT do this...I would like to get my hands on some Chocolate ENGLISH Orpingtons. *passes out* I am in love with them.

I may have a resource for you on chocolate english orps - one of the folks who I have been talking to on the dwarf olandsk thread raises chocolate orps and raved about the breeder that she acquired her birds from. PM me if you want her contact info and I'll hook you up!

 

[ronott1]

Quote:

Chocolate Orps!

 

[zooweemama]

Get customers and set up a facebook page. Once your customers try your eggs they will not want the $2.00 eggs from CL. I know because there is a co worker her that buys two dozen a week from me instead of the guy she used to get them from. Mine are way better because of what I feed them. No one can come out ahead or even pay for the feed at $2.00 per dozen, so the hens are usually not well taken care of.

On the facebook page, make a big deal about all you do for them! Remember to quote the Omega 3 studies too and post pictures of your flock! Have them notify you when the want eggs. You will probably wind up with a waiting list.

Good luck!

Ron

Amy Beth and other egg sellers,

One thing you could do is give a half dozen to families in your church. Tell them the first one is free but the rest will cost $X.00 per dozen

I gave a half dozen to each the staff in my Dept and now three of them buy eggs from me.

bye,

Ron

Thanks, Ron! I love the sampler idea. I could a half doz: 2 duck eggs and 4 chicken eggs. Yeah?

Seriously. I think we have been eating farm fresh eggs for almost 2 years now? It's REALLY hard to go back to store when the farmer is out or low. I need to find a place in town that sells farm fresh since my husband's uncles hens closed up shop on him. I had to buy a bunch of Trader Joe eggs. They are ok...but not farm fresh. LOL

Anyone here in Redding selling eating eggs? CL makes me nervous...like who to buy from, are they really fresh? LOL

 

[zooweemama]

I may have a resource for you on chocolate english orps - one of the folks who I have been talking to on the dwarf olandsk thread raises chocolate orps and raved about the breeder that she acquired her birds from. PM me if you want her contact info and I'll hook you up!

I'd love it! I am not ready for them yet. I want to wait until Spring to add new birds. Or at the very least- wait until I cull my excess roosters which will be a while yet.

 

[lawatt]

Seriously. I think we have been eating farm fresh eggs for almost 2 years now? It's REALLY hard to go back to store when the farmer is out or low. I need to find a place in town that sells farm fresh since my husband's uncles hens closed up shop on him. I had to buy a bunch of Trader Joe eggs. They are ok...but not farm fresh. LOL

speaking of freshness -- in case you haven't seen it elsewhere on the internet, you MUST watch this fabulous "remix" of Julia Child from PBS -- one of the "chorus lines" is, "freshness is essential, that makes all the difference..." -- just ridiculously charming: