Marketing your eggs and chickens!

[Namres]

Hi Folks

So, I have been on this forum for a week or so and have learned quite a lot.

My aim is to have around 400 to 1000 hens primarily for eggs.

At the moment I market my eggs locally with private customers. But have hotels and a supermarket that actually want 130 Dozen per week at the moment. We hope we can get that running by January.

Regarding Live Chickens, how do you do this? I bought some poultry supplies at a pet shop yesterday, and all of a sudden they asked me to supply them with chickens, Macau's and Geese. I was surely smiling.

What do you guys do?

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Are you in South Africa?

If so I would carefully check out the local regulations concerning egg and bird sales because there may be some once you start selling to hotels and supermarkets. Private customers are easier in that regard.

As for the birds themselves I would not expand too fast because the larger your operation grows the more potential problems you will experience that you might not have encountered with fewer birds. Feed costs, biosecurity, sanitation, water, egg gathering and processing, all of these things become increasingly important as you grow larger. Grow into it at a pace you can control if you possibly can.

 

[Namres]

Sort of got it covered...

I am part time farming already with Goats and Cattle, so am registered etc. So some of the issues do not pose the biggest problem.

We are also trying to expand gradually with the chickens. But for around 400 hens we are ok at the moment. Everything bigger we will see once we have 400.