how much do you charge for your eggs?

[CarolAnn]

I'm sure there are differing opinions about this but I've always heard that fertile eggs are more nutritious than non fertile. I got a young roo partly because I want a well rounded chicken experience, even though my hubby kept telling me I didn't want a rooster. My daughter and her hubby live 1/4 mile down our road and they were soo annoyed when their closest neighbor got a rooster because it crowed so much. They actually believed that a roo only crows once when the sun comes up and that's it. LOL Surprising how many people really believe that, also many think you have to have a rooster to get eggs. Ohhkay....... I was soo excited when the little guy started to try to crow, and I absolutely love to hear him crow throughout the day. I'm not sure I'll get fertile eggs or not since he's a cochin and so much smaller than the girls. Guess they all have more growing to do but I was told he'd probably be around 2/3 the size of my girls, who are all full size breeds. Heck, what do I know. I'm not sure how they do IT so I don't know if they ARE. LOL I can't seem to find any info to set me straight/educate me.

I can take the eggs fertile or not but since my roo is right in with the girls my future customers will have to decide for themselves. I need to start telling more people that I'll be having fresh eggs before too long because when they do start coming I'll need to know where they're going. Yikes! LOL

 

[stryeyz]

In our flock we have 20 hens, 2 bantys, and 1 banty roo. The banty roo had NO problem fertilizing the eggs for our Buffs, Americaunas, Golden Laced Wyandottes, Brown Leghorns, and Rhode Island Reds. In fact I'd be hard-pressed to find a non-fertilized egg, that roo gets so much action!

We have added a few "misc" meat breed roosters ("Frypan Special" from Cackle Hatchery so we're not sure on the breed) as well to see whether we might be able to hatch our own chicks at some point. I haven't noticed whether they are doing any fertilizing - they are still pretty young yet.

I do let my friends know that the eggs are likely fertilized, and if they run into any concerns with that to be sure to let me know. So far, no concerns. And they are quite happy knowing my eggs aren't on the salmonella-outbreak list!!!

I'm selling my eggs to friends for $2/dozen, and my one friend that is my biggest customer gets bonus eggs now and then. They usually trade cartons with me so that I always have cartons. I could possibly get more, but I don't see the need to raise the price. We're just stuffing away the egg money for winter feed funds.

Oh, and I'm in the Spokane, WA area - I think area has a lot to do with pricing...

 

[stryeyz]

On the fertilzed or unfertilized eating question - I don't mind fertilized but my mother-in-law tends to pick off the fertilization using a loop hemostat. She's fine if they are fertilized but prefers to take that off.

 

[Tropical Chickies]

I was charging $4/doz and getting it no problem. Since this whole egg recall, I am going to raise my price to $5/doz and see what kind of response I get.

After hearing the garbage the commercial companies feed their egg layers (feathers, chicken litter, and ground up dead chickens) and seeing chickens standing in 8' of crap, I don't feel I am being to unreasonable. My chickens are kept under the best conditions and eat what would be considered more "organic" feed than any other commercial company and they are getting over $5 and $6 a dozen in whole food stores for their supposed "free range, cage-free, organic". That is all a bunch of hoopla and they need to be exposed!

Sheesh, don't even get me started on commercial meat/egg producers!!!!!!!!!

 

[CarolAnn]

Okay, I don't know yet what I'm going to charge for my eggs once I have any to sell. Yesterday I checked out the brown, non organic, eggs at one store in town and they were up to $2.25 where they're usually $1.98. I will be charging more than the store, I know that.

 

[chickenchicky]

We live in Western Massachusetts. Free range eggs/organic eggs go for $3.99 per HALF dozen.. We don't use organic feed, but we use natural feed and they are free ranging all day. We plan to sell ours street side in our neighborhood for $3.00 per doz. Maybe $4.00.

 

[chickenchicky]

That's one busy banty roo!

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[JimWWhite]

I'm still charging $3.00/dz and I sell every egg I take into the office. We have 30 GC's and we get at least 24 big brown eggs each and every day so I have at least 2 dozen to sell each morning. There have been times when there will be a couple of my co-workers waiting at my door when I get to work with empty cartons in hand asking for a reload. People always tell me that my eggs taste the best. I remind them that grocery store eggs have been out of the chickens for about 6 weeks before they even go to the store so they lose a lot of their taste and nutritional value. Plus I tell them that's the cause of salmonella too... Well, can I help it if I work with a bunch of rubes who believe anything I tell them?

Oh, and one guy who moved here recently from Long Island, NY asked me if white eggs were bleached brown eggs. I had to tell him yes, and that's why they don't taste as good either because of the chlorine. He went away happy so I get credit for doing good, right?

 

[BrewedInNh]

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Now that's funny right there, I don't care who you are.

 

[stretchc1]

I have never sold excess eggs exactly, but I did put some up for auction at my son's school last spring. I know, that's a different situation, but I think I did hit on a way to be honest about the hen's living conditions and yet "market" the eggs to folks who might be anxious about buying food produced in someone's backyard and/or be aware of the shady definitions of "free range" allowed by the USDA. On the display at the auction, I said that my flock "eats high-quality, all-vegetarian feed and has true access to grass and whatever they can forage. They are happy, healthy hens. Their eggs are unfertilized (no roosters)." We got $35 for 2 dozen eggs!!!