How to calculate how much eggs are costing?

[h2oratt]

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...

And I feed organic, non gmo, no corn no soy so I would double the feed price. I still have a hard time getting 5.00 a dozen.

 

[h2oratt]

I like what @aart says about bag cycle. Start a new bag of food, save receipt or write down the price, start a tally of how many eggs you get until the bag is gone, then you can get a basic calculation of how much you are spending on a dozen eggs. You can even add a new bag of oyster grit and/or bedding at the same time if that's something you purchase. Depending how much food your flock goes through a week this method may or may not take you some time. For me a 50lb bag lasts about a month, which would give me a more accurate calculation than a week because it would factor in the girl occasionally not laying.

How many chickens do you have.?

 

[PirateGirl]

How many chickens do you have.?

5

 

[K813ZRA]

That is a great use of the protein (not economical in the long run though). I have a friend who raises fancy breeds. He throws away the eggs that he doesn't plan to eat or hatch. I keep telling him to feed them back to the birds (even if he scrambles them first!!!) but he's set in his ways.
I feed my cracked/broken eggs back to the birds. I also feed the clears after 1 week of incubation back to the birds. I smash them up even more and stir them into the feed so they don't look like eggs.

Yeah, I didn't get ducks to sell eggs anyway so I figure that doing something with the eggs is better than tossing them. I have a friend who tosses all of his eggs in the swamp...I don't get it either!

 

[bruceha2000]

I think some people consider a bird eating its "own" egg (or that of its species) is akin to cannibalism.

 

[Shezadandy]

If you're looking for a way to get the feed bill down- around here the big feed stores do discounted gift cards around the holidays and usually Father's day- so (depending on your personal finances) you can effectively give yourself a 20% discount on everything they sell all year long- including the big sales. i.e. if you bought a $500 gift card, it's loaded with $600. Currently Flock Raiser and Start and Grow are on sale for $15/50lb bag. If you also had the discounted gift card, the effective price goes down to $12/50lb bag- and that's a huge savings... and when it's not on sale instead of $19/50lb bag the effective price is $15.20/50lb bag.

 

[Counting chickens]

I


I was just about to mention basically what you said.

I have English Orps. They're not the best layers, they eat/poop a lot, but the eggs are huge. I do sell some eating eggs to friends & neighbors for $4/doz. (That's far less than the going rate at Whole Foods but more than Walmart. People who want cheap eggs, won't want mine anyway. The customers who are used to paying $6-$8/doz fight at the chance to get mine.) I also label each egg with the hen's name & date laid. My neighbors love to stop by & meet the hen who made them breakfast and sometimes the neighbor kids will even request a specific hen's eggs. I really only sell eggs at times of surplus, and I've never had a problem selling them.

Where I make some $ to actually help pay for our hobby is by selling chicks. Our DD kept coming up with new 4H projects that always involved hatching. Of course, we then had to sell all the hatch results. That's when I decided to invest in some quality birds. Purebreds are much easier to sell. I sell them straight run for the 1st 4 weeks. The price goes up when I know it's a pullet and the extra males get processed. Sure some people will want to get $2 chicks, but that's what feed stores & hatcheries are for. When someone takes home some of our chicks, they usually come back for more the next year. I've had people buy chicks from 6 different states! (I do not ship)
View attachment 1270294 View attachment 1270295

When the kids want to try out a new breed, we buy hatching eggs, keep the 2-3 favs & sell the rest to make back our cost of the eggs. Again it's a hobby, so a good hatch rate and a little profit in spring is needed to get us through the winter.

Another fun thing I do is sell hatching eggs to the schools. I help set up their incubator, set the eggs, bring in a live chicken for a Q&A, and make myself available around hatch day in case of emergencies. Most teachers don't want to keep the chicks, so I often end up selling those too when they're done. Every spring I do about 4-6 classrooms, so it's a busy time.

Holy Crap! Those are big chickens!

 

[bruceha2000]

Sure are!

 

[jodyman]

@jodyman How many hens, how many days does the 50# of feed last and how many eggs per day for that bag of feed?

I got 6 hens and the 50# of feed last a month. It varies on eggs per day, winter months 2 a day and summer 6 per day. So it evens out.

 

[Faraday40]

Holy Crap! Those are big chickens!

Yes, the black orp is a very big boy & great around children. He's always been a good protector & finds treats for his hens. Now he's semi-retired and more of a pet. The laced orp is smaller (just shy of 9lbs) but he's also got a great temperament.