If you sell eggs are the hens paying for themselves?

[elizabethbinary]

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My husband wants one of those SO bad. And an escavator.

I keep having to explain to him we live on 800...square metres. not acres.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Them boys they just like their toys.

 

[woodmort]

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It's an 1986 Agri-Power 5000. I use it to move the trailered hen houses when on pasture. Also use it to haul out the water and feed, and to brush cut the field when it gets too high. In the winter I move snow for extra income.

This works for me:

 

[briteday]

We are into our 4th year with chickens. We started out with 6 RIR hens that we got for free at point of lay, because the owner was tired of paying for the feed and not getting eggs. We got the first egg about 24 hours after we brought them home and put them in a plastic dog crate in the pasture until we could slap together a coop, with leftover (read: free) lumber laying around. People started asking if we would sell eggs. So it ended up we were selling all the eggs they could lay and we weren't eating any eggs ourselves! So each year we have increased our flock, rotated and re-homed hens as they became less productive, made friends and bartered with people that have incubators to make more chicks for egg production and to sell for profit, ...and we now are settled at about 25 hens per year. Last year 2010, we had a profit of $147 after feed and supplies are accounted for. And now we have eggs to eat ourselves too! We also have enough to share with the local Food Bank, barter with, give as gifts / thank you's. And we still have people on a waiting list most of the time for egg sales. But I've reached my limit on how many birds I will keep.

We enjoy the time outdoors and it beats the cost of a gym membership. Obviously the chicken project quickly outgrew it's original coop. But we control costs by finding free or nearly free alternatives. The new coop is an 8 x 10 shed that someone wanted moved off their property...you move it, it's yours ...free. It was a project to move an already built shed...but my husband managed it somehow. Our chickens have about 1/4 acre of fenced pasture, all of the commercial layer feed they can eat, plenty of mealworm treats that we raise ourselves, vegetable scraps from the garden and table scraps from the kitchen, fresh clean water provided by the new nipple buckets that we made with the profits from our chick sales this Spring, ...seems like a pretty good life for them. When they cost more to feed than they can make in eggs the locals are happy to pay a bit for "yard art" to impress their friends and are thrilled to get an occasional egg...yes, a little strange but true. So I find that my girls live out their days in even better surroundings than I provided for them! And we get to visit them because often the families are still buying eggs from us...strange, but true!

Profit can be done, but we approach it from a productive standpoint and they are like any of our other livestock...not pets. We keep records and a spreadsheet to track production and costs. We enjoy them as we do other livestock, it's why we live where we do so that we can have animals, but they still live in the pasture.

 

[cowdogcadillac]

18 chickens and 5 turkeys are paying for their own feed and egg cartons. At 3 bucks a dozen the eggs are a big draw mostly because our dozen is a mix of brown,green,blue,Olive and speckled pinkish color. The cartons are the killer.Even buying 200-300 the price is still .34 cents each. I'm getting 12-18 eggs a day from the birds so they must be happy. The watermelons,pumpkins,tomatoes and other treats are not included in the egg sell budget. Those are extra treats to let the ladies know we enjoy them thank them for their hard work

 

[Baralak]

You could always have a $.25 cent refund on the carton... Also something that has worked for several eggers I know, put a post on Craigs List wanting used foam egg cartons... You would be amazed at how many you will get.

And on the OP topic. Well I hope to break even, but it will take a while. I'm working with the local feed stores to provide them with local chicks, selling eggs for $2.50 doz, and Hatching sevices. I have 8 at POL, 4 Serama's (Local Chicks, and Shipped eggs) and 11 5 week olds growing fast...

NPIP inspection on Monday! That was for shipping eggs, and selling chicks.

 

[kuntrygirl]

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Have you tried posting on Craigslist or your local Freecycle group for FREE egg cartons? You may want to ask family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc. to get their egg cartons when they are done with them. That is how I get my egg cartons. With 150 chickens, I can't afford to buy egg cartons. My garage is stacked with wall to wall egg cartons. I have close to 400 egg cartons right now. I have been having chickens for years and I have not spent 1 cent on egg cartons. If you lived close to me, I would give you about 200 egg cartons.

 

[trunkman]

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Have you tried posting on Craigslist or your local Freecycle group for FREE egg cartons? You may want to ask family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc. to get their egg cartons when they are done with them. That is how I get my egg cartons. With 150 chickens, I can't afford to buy egg cartons. My garage is stacked with wall to wall egg cartons. I have close to 400 egg cartons right now. I have been having chickens for years and I have not spent 1 cent on egg cartons. If you lived close to me, I would give you about 200 egg cartons.

This has nothing to do with the topic but, I checked out you homepage and I love those turkeys and little goats, nice home page!

 

[cowdogcadillac]

great tip on the free egg cartons. I will try it.