Is there a market for laying hens?

[iajewel]

Cost of a hatchery chick..
heavey breed, brown egg layer- 2.07 straight run
heat lamp- 6.00 a month
starter feed-9.00 (avrage)
first months keep-17.07 per only one bird.. or 2.53 per chick per 25 birds (straight run)

Feed them for 6 months untill they can lay.. at 12.00 per 50lb bag avrage for layena. We bought 25 straight run.. so we are feeding 12 hens for 6 months. = 166.00 per six months or 27.66 a month.

Now your hens are 6 months old and you are getting 10 eggs a day from 12 hens.. thats 25 dozen eggs a month. If you buy those eggs at the store, they aren't as healthy, but they are only about 1.00 a dozen. Thats 25.00 a month. You most likly have brown eggs I have seen sell for 4.00 a dozen at Walmart.. (I about fainted.. ) Now you have a profit if you can actually sell at even twice the white egg market.. or 2.00 a dozen. Get creative with "farm freash eggs" and you might get more.
Now figure in your looses.. some of those birds will have died. Others won't lay as much, and winter and molt will also cut your profits..

Lets face it.. we don't own chickens for the profit.. we own them becuse we love them.. we take our movie money.. our out to super money.. and we spend it on better at home entertainment. So what if they do or don't lay.. They are very rarely if ever a buisness on small scale terms.

now buy an incubator and that one egg just brought as much profit as a whole dozen.. but if you don't sell that chick and fast. you start all over again loosing money or breaking even..

I personally would never waste the money on raising up hens to sell.. chicks yes.. started birds no.. If I get them that far.. Im keeping them.

 

[ItsSuzzie]

Hens at the Feed Barn in Lucerne Valley, Ca. Sell for $20. My friend in Phelan, Ca. sells her Green eggs for $14 dozen. Yea, I know....I could not sell mine that high and feel good about it.

Well, that is California for you.

 

[ItsSuzzie]

Lajewel has a point there. Check with your local feed supply place, they may make a deal to buy chicks from you. Show them your large green eggs.

 

[iajewel]

Quote:
14.00 a dozen

My word.. do these people know that shell color does not effect nutritional value? *faints*

 

[mrsengeseth]

I am in the market for laying hens. Heck, if they were actually laying I'd pay 20. If they would lay soon, 15 or so.

 

[what was i thinking]

i had some chicks i just hatched last week. i have more going to hatch. so i said "self, what are going to do with all these chicks?" well, i decided to put them on craigslist. week old chicks, $2, straight run. i thought no one would want these is snowing out and freezing. i could have sold them ten times. one guy called thinking i might have forty, because a bator holds that many. i said no, i have 7. he sort of laughed. i explained i could hatch more for him. $2 for mixed and $3 for pure. he said fill the bator and call me the day they hatch. he will take them all. he was looking for up to fifty. i said i would still do $2 a piece for what ever i hatched. now to me, that is a great idea. now if i could only get that great of a hatch. all i have to do is hatch them. then i put an ad for fertile eggs. (he said he didn't care what kind of chicken, just something that layed eggs!) it would take me a while to get that many eggs from my own hens. so i found people to sell them to me for 1.50 - 3.00 a dozen . one charged an extra dollar because she knew i was going to hatch them.
the bators are warming up as we speak. i will be filling two. all the other people that responded said they would take some out of the next batch. even if they don't take everything, i am not to worried. i would just have a great sale, $1 a piece. maybe enough to pay for my feed, thats all i am looking for.

eta: also a friend of mine is selling pullets about to lay, $12 a piece. she wants a dozen. so i guess having trouble getting rid of them in the winter is wrong. i think because there isn't any out there being offered.

 

[grullablue]

Young, but laying hens is what I'll be after myself! I've raised chicks, but would rather not if I don't have to! I'll bet there's plenty of people like me out there who want the eggs, but don't want to have to wait! I'm miserable with empty coop syndrome here... and grossed out by the store bought eggs!

Angie

 

[hollyk]

In business there is a term "Whatever the market will bare-" Meaning whatever someone will pay is what you can get. I think giving your daughter a taste of being a business owner, making a little money at something she loves, is worth whatever it may cost you. I would front the money for the feed and let her sell what she can- be it a chick or a pullet about to lay.

I, personally, never want to discourage anyone from trying something out for themselves. What have you got to lose? Even if it "fails" you have still learned something.

My kids have two businesses- breeding labs and meat goats. At ages 15, 13, 9, & 7- my kids don't think like everyone else. For that I am grateful. They have learned to keep books, develope a profit/loss statement and have learned that you have to stick to it in the begining if you want to build something of worth. They also pay for a lot of their own stuff and feel proud of themselves. My husband and I buy dog food all year, when the puppies arrive and sell, they pay us the price of 1 puppy. Does that pup cover what it costs to keep the lab all year? No. Somethings of value cannot be bought. Same with the goats, we cover when they come up short. The experience has so been worth it.

By all means- let her give it a go!

 

[rSpriggs]

Quote:
I recently placed an ad in CL for "pre-orders" - I wanted to see how many would be interested in straight run hatched chicks, from organic stock, at $2 a piece.
in 2 days, I had responses for 12, 18 & 50. Not bad for testing the waters. . .
So, I figure I'll first hatch a batch for myself (we downsized from 65 to 22 this year) early in the season (Jan). If I set the bator up with 25 and allow for a loss of 5, I guess I'll have 10 roos & 10 hens laying in late summer.
I can cycle half (10) of my existing flock out to sell as organically raised 1.5 yr old layers (prime), maybe in sets of 3 hens with 1 of the new roos, for a pkg of 4 ready-to-go organic setup, already laying, $75 a set. that will give me about $200 from that end, and I already have $150 in day-old orders, so it sure beats egg selling at $3.75 a dozen (tho I do that, too) . . .

 

[m00res]

FYI, I paid $10 each for some pretty sorry looking RIRs. They were rescues from a commercial facility so I wasn't going to walk away once I saw them. I bet you could do better! Good luck!