from hobbie to small business...

[M0therGoose]

I love poultry, especially geese, and hatching eggs. I'd love to turn this hobby into a business someday. Do you guys really make much money at this? Is it something one person could do by themself part-time to supplement an income? I am by NO means looking to get rich but getting paid for doing something i love. I live in the city so I can't do anything right now but am moving to our 50 acres in the country as soon as our oldest graduates from high school in 2 years. Any ideas on what i can do? anyone?

 

[Littlecimarron18]

i make a decent ammount. but not enough to live on. i only do the egg thing. i do farmers market in the summer, and sell at a dairy in the winter

 

[Lmarie]

I don't know, but I wonder the same thing myself.... That way I can explain it reasonably to my husband... 'Seeeee? I'm actually collecting all these chickens for a good reason!!'

(Yeah..sure.)

 

[nicodemuschickenfan]

From what I hear, you can but not a lot.

Though I would love to hear tips on how to do so. I'm planning on trying to sell my surplus eggs to pay for the chickens suplies. Only right they carry their own weight. lol

 

[Bock_Bock]

to make a profit it takes alot of math to figure out between feed and raising and egg produce but if you get the right breeds and most likely buy in bulk for feed then it can get to a nice income. But remeber the more you pay for a PURE breed the more the eggs your gonna get, so say you are selling RIR eggs your not goign to get a smuch as if you were selling some Lavender orp where their eggs can sell in the hundreds, again depending on your flock, so if you just have a regular flock sure you can make some money, but to make the real money you have to put money in first

 

[Littlecimarron18]

i put in about 1500 dollars and a year and a half later, i m starting to see profit

 

[M0therGoose]

Thanks for your input.

When you say eggs, I assume you are talking about selling fertile eggs for hatching? Do you really find enough people to buy them?? Do you ever have a problem with left overs---the ones you didn't sell??

I don't plan on doing this to make a living... just to supplement my husband's income while i stay home and raise the kids. And when the kids get a little older I plan to go back to school teaching, as i did before. UNLESS this turned into income that matched that of a school teacher---which i seriously doubt.

and i'd LOVE for my hobbie to earn us some money so my hubby would shut up about the money it costs!

 

[jnjross]

well my chickens earn their keep and nothing more. yet

 

[M0therGoose]

I already have a big GQF cabinet incubator that a friend of my mom's gave me about 10 years ago. I'd love to drag that thing out of the back of my garage someday and fill it with eggs!! Sadly, I have only used it once in the past 10 years! I drug it out last week and spent all day cleaning the dust out to get it ready for 4 sebbie goose eggs i ordered on ebay. but when i plugged it in, it wouldn't heat up

. I think my oldest daughter and i were too rough when we cleaned it and may have knocked something loose. I had to run out the next day and buy a small hovabator because the eggs had arrived.

 

[Littlecimarron18]

Eggs for eating, I am just now starting to sell hatching eggs. I make about 400 bucks a month out of them. My cousin raised turkeys last year and sold them for 4 bucks a pound. he made a killin there. Also we raise meat chickens and sell them for 3-4 bucks a pound too. (all the animals are organic)