How much did your first egg cost?

[CrystalAnon]

I was curious… I know some people don’t like to talk about chicken finances.
I’m asking, to those who are willing to say, how much did your first egg cost?
I’ll go first… even though I haven’t even harvested a single egg yet (9 week old chicks on Monday). Our first egg will cost over $5k.
We started from scratch. We had someone else build our coop, but it was a very reasonable price given what it would cost just for what we calculated in building supplies for a coop. We built the run. We bought a bsfl bin & we built a bsfl box, to secure it from predators, after it was attacked multiple times.
Then we bought a ton of grains & seeds for future scratch/feed (if we can’t get feed from our usual suppliers at some point). We prep for ourselves, our cat & now our chicks! We also vacuum sealed all of it (mostly from Azure Standard) for preservation, to prevent mold, to prevent bug egg hatching & to portion it. (Took about 10 hours to vacuum seal everything we bought. 100s of pounds.)
I added EVERYTHING in that number (including the deck screws, to secure the run frame)… plus an excel spreadsheet to track it all. I know exactly what it cost for the first egg… but I am an accountant. So I tracked it, down to the dollar, so I would know exactly (to my husband’s dismay! ).
If you don’t know exactly (because you aren’t a finance nerd)… What’s your guess?!

 

[DParker75089]

We sold our old house, moved all the way across Dallas/Ft. Worth and bought an even bigger house on 10x as much land...mostly because I wanted to be able to keep chickens, goats, etc. So, let's just say my eggs cost a lot.

 

[The Moonshiner]

It was too long ago but all it cost me was a bag of feed and a roll of chicken wire. Probably less then $30 back then.

 

[CrystalAnon]

We sold our old house, moved all the way across Dallas/Ft. Worth and bought an even bigger house on 10x as much land...mostly because I wanted to be able to keep chickens, goats, etc. So, let's just say my eggs cost a lot.

I can relate!
The requirements for our home search, moving from California to Florida was “Can have chickens”, “Few neighbors” (also because of chickens) & “2 bathrooms”.
I have no doubt your eggs cost more than ours though. We found a spot with few neighbors, but only an acre. It’s our first home purchase though. We’ll definitely want 10x what we have now, in a few years. It’s been so enjoyable building everything we have now, and seeing it thrive, less than a year later!

 

[Sammster]

We sold our old house, moved all the way across Dallas/Ft. Worth and bought an even bigger house on 10x as much land...mostly because I wanted to be able to keep chickens, goats, etc. So, let's just say my eggs cost a lot.

You win! I'm not going to even enter this contest

 

[DParker75089]

You win! I'm not going to even enter this contest

I believe that may be a textbook case of a Pyrrhic victory.

 

[Sally PB]

I'll guess our first egg was "only" $1000. Probably less, as we had a lot of the coop build stuff on hand from another project, and several components were free/donated/repurposed.

 

[Nodakj]

I stopped counting @ about $3000. Just added another $700 for some electric poultry fence and energizer.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

First egg around $250, the eggs that came 6 months later till now, probably around $2,800. The ladies still have A LOT of rent to pay, lol

 

[RubelliteRose]

We also moved from a suburban house to a rural one to get chickens, but since it was 6 years before we actually got chickens, I won't count that as an expense.
I'm going to guess $500-$1000 for the first egg due to early pandemic lumber prices. As a victim of chicken math, I refuse to think about the cost of later eggs