How to calculate how much eggs are costing?

[TomZilla43]

Health benefits of REALLY fresh eggs = priceless.
Taste, consistency, umami = really priceless.
Having a large group of hot chicks that will follow you everywhere and literally eat out of your hand, I mean, what an ego boost!

100# feed is $27/month
Treats, supplements, oyster shell, grit = maybe $10 a month?
Housing = depends of the amortization schedule. Call it a hobby = $0
Your time = a psychiatrist charges $100/hour, so?

17 chickens is roughly 100 eggs per week over the first year from point of lay. If from chicks for the first 6 months, no eggs, but you have housing and feed. Keep it simple.

$37/month for 400 eggs is $4.44 a dozen eggs.

If you add psychiatric consultations for, call it 1 hour a week, that is +$400/month. It actually pays you to keep chickens. Think of all the money we will save!

You will not get rich from selling eggs. But your mental health will be awesome. I'm surprised they don't have more coops in mental institutions.

From the nut house,
RUNuts...

 

[aart]

$0.28/dozen??? The battery hen farms can't produce eggs at anything close to that price and they are as cheap as you can get. That is a serious loss leader at the store. They must have really jacked the profit price on other things people will buy while they are in the store for the (effectively) free eggs. The customers just don't realize it.

It's crazy....loss leader, probably...but many stores have had very cheap eggs for year or so now. Long running thread with reports over on HST, pretty interesting.

 

[bruceha2000]

Loss leader for sure - Feb 12, 2018 prices:
https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/pybshellegg.pdf
The CHEAPEST USDA Large White dozen delivered to a warehouse is in the midwest. Price range: $1.48-$1.57
The eggs have to be trucked to the store from that warehouse, more money.

The PDF also has a chart that shows combined regional cost for 3 years, last year and so far this year. The CHEAPEST was $0.55 in March last year.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

$0.28/dozen??? The battery hen farms can't produce eggs at anything close to that price and they are as cheap as you can get. That is a serious loss leader at the store. They must have really jacked the profit price on other things people will buy while they are in the store for the (effectively) free eggs. The customers just don't realize it.

That reminds me of my 2nd cousin Cletus. The old boy made a fortune selling watermelons. When I asked Cletus how he managed to make so much he said that. "I just mark every watermelon up 1%. You mean that you buy watermelons for a Dollar and sell them for $1.01 I asked? No he said I buy each watermelon for a dollar and sell it for 2 dollars." Math isn't Cletus' strongest suite.

 

[pamonarch]

Health benefits of REALLY fresh eggs = priceless.
Taste, consistency, umami = really priceless.
Having a large group of hot chicks that will follow you everywhere and literally eat out of your hand, I mean, what an ego boost!

100# feed is $27/month
Treats, supplements, oyster shell, grit = maybe $10 a month?
Housing = depends of the amortization schedule. Call it a hobby = $0
Your time = a psychiatrist charges $100/hour, so?

17 chickens is roughly 100 eggs per week over the first year from point of lay. If from chicks for the first 6 months, no eggs, but you have housing and feed. Keep it simple.

$37/month for 400 eggs is $4.44 a dozen eggs.

If you add psychiatric consultations for, call it 1 hour a week, that is +$400/month. It actually pays you to keep chickens. Think of all the money we will save!

You will not get rich from selling eggs. But your mental health will be awesome. I'm surprised they don't have more coops in mental institutions.

From the nut house,
RUNuts...

I love the way you think...great outlook on life with chickens...i sure do love mine!!

 

[silkie10]

this probably won't be much of a help but i sell my eggs at 2.50

 

[cstronks]

I've always gone month to month rather than bag to bag, simply because I don't control how much feed I provide on a consistent basis - I always just make sure that the feeder is full. Some weeks the hens eat more while others are less. Over the course of the month, I'm able to determine cost of feed, snacks, incidentals to coop/run or birds, and then divide by the number of eggs received.

I'm usually around $3. In the summer this drops, in the winter it slightly increases. Overall this is a solid number considering Whole Foods is around $7 for a dozen...

 

[Gail Laubenthal]

Health benefits of REALLY fresh eggs = priceless.
Taste, consistency, umami = really priceless.
Having a large group of hot chicks that will follow you everywhere and literally eat out of your hand, I mean, what an ego boost!

100# feed is $27/month
Treats, supplements, oyster shell, grit = maybe $10 a month?
Housing = depends of the amortization schedule. Call it a hobby = $0
Your time = a psychiatrist charges $100/hour, so?

17 chickens is roughly 100 eggs per week over the first year from point of lay. If from chicks for the first 6 months, no eggs, but you have housing and feed. Keep it simple.

$37/month for 400 eggs is $4.44 a dozen eggs.

If you add psychiatric consultations for, call it 1 hour a week, that is +$400/month. It actually pays you to keep chickens. Think of all the money we will save!

You will not get rich from selling eggs. But your mental health will be awesome. I'm surprised they don't have more coops in mental institutions.

From the nut house,
RUNuts...

Thanks for your humor and your way of looking at our "hobby"! I agree with you that the benefits are priceless...how do you put a cost on the greatest joy in life? From hatching new chicks, to loving on them from birth to death, chickens offer us so much, not to mention the free compost for our gardens. I sell my eggs at $4.00 per dozen and the cash goes back into my hobby. Sometimes there is a little left over to make a deposit at the end of the month...another benefit. I think that everyone goes into raising chickens with a different reason, but what ever it is, the world is a better place when you raise your own chickens and eat their eggs.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

All dual purpose birds here... I like to calculate my cost over the year since feed consumption and laying can vary so widely.

All I can say... it cost me between $2.50 and $3 to produce a dozen eggs... which I figure once laying including molt I can chalk up to 1 dozen per month per lady. Feed cost me $17-20/bag. I feed 20% protein flock raiser, which cost a little more than layer, but suits my needs well and provides the best nutrition possible.

What I discovered... I can sell eating eggs for $4 per dozen... or hatched chicks for $2-9 EACH depending on breed (though the whole dozen won't hatch). Take into account hatch rate.. brings my take not yet including expenses to $7.65 per egg. It cost me $1 per egg, including incubation (not the bator itself), hen feed, short term heating after hatch, nutri drench and so on.

So on the $2 chicks I make $1 each. On the $9 chicks, I make $6.65 each... this is already factoring in those that were set but didn't hatch. The ones that were blanks get fed back to the other animals and this isn't credited into my cost factor, so it's just a bonus savings on other animal feed.

That's an earnings of $12 per dozen eggs for mix breeds... and $79.80 per dozen for pure Marans or Silkies. If they purchase 4 or more I drop the price to $8 each. Still giving me $5.65 profit per egg for a total of $67.80 per dozen!!!

Rare breeds don't sell much... popular breeds DO sell all day long. I can't afford to sell eating eggs with profits like that... my family is lucky they get any!

I'm sure it cost me less feed and such to produce the Silkie eggs... but for those ladies I have to take into account their extreme broodiness.

And I offer to take back any males for processing, for free as a community service... with the understanding they will NOT be returned to my flock but become food for my family and pets or for someone else's. I maintain biosecurity as much as possible, not bringing them back to MY property though. And we get the bonus of extra meat, including Silkie's that only costed me processing labor.

After that... ladies get sold early in the season after their 2nd molt once they've returned to lay for $25 each with some good laying still left in them. Considering this I get to replace all my birds with pullets at essentially no new cost and got eggs/chicks all that time. If I grow some out for myself, any who weren't selected for breeding get sold for $30 each at point of lay, which cost me about $10 to raise them.

I haven't ever shipped and don't currently have NPIP. But can still say that eating eggs are fun... but hatching eggs are profitable! I haven't sold any hatching because I am making sure I've got this. But if and when I do... they will likely be $12-20 per dozen for mix breeds (OE) and $40 per dozen for pure.

Note MOST people drive at least 90 minutes each way to my location... and haven't ONCE heard anybody complain or even ASK about my price being negotiable!

This year has been the most exciting!

Good luck with your egg business.

 

[Bonniebooboo]

Why would you do that? The goal here is to come up with the lowest number possible so you can point to it when your spouse complains about how much chickens cost.