McDonald's finally did something right

[maple]

I lurves my chicken boy kurty.

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

Quote:
I don't think there is anything wrong with my logic. The U.S. population has doubled in that time frame, yet productivity of layer hens has gone up greatly while per capita consumption has dropped.

Let's compare to the dairy industry. In 1950, there were 3.5 million dairies in the U.S., by 1970 that number was down to 650,000, currently there are 65,000 dairies. Yet, from 1950 to now, the herd size has declined from 17 million cows to around 9 million now, due to increased productivity.

Looking at the layer industry, egg production was largely decentralized in 1950 with millions of producers. By the mid '80s there were 2500 companies with 75,000 hens or more. Currently there are around 190 companies in the U.S. with 75,000 or more hens (many with millions of hens). These 190 companies comprise about 95% of the egg production in the U.S., mostly consolidated in five states.

U.S. egg production uses about 280,000,000 layer hens, just under one hen for every person in the U.S. Using the 65,000 remaining dairy farms as a baseline number (just for the heck of it), that equates to only 4000 some hens per farm, not much larger than what I keep here using fairly traditional methods. As I said, there are hundreds of thousands of small farms lying fallow or being used for recreational land, and there are hundreds of thousands of people who would like to make a living at farming.

I don't buy the argument that traditional methods won't feed the population. There is more than enough productive land to handle decentralized, smaller operations.

You are right about the economics of such though. It is very hard for the smallholder to compete in today's marketplace. The producer with the cheapest, most efficient production wins. The only way around it is to ditch the free market and practice supply management with producer quotas and regulation.

The only thing with haveing 4,000 hens is what do you do with the 3,000+ eggs Most Households can not hand wash or process 3,000 eggs a day. They would need egg handling equipment to take care of some of the work for them. PLus 5 years ago the Regulations on eggs were nothing compaired to what they are now. Back then the trucks to deliver the eggs didn't even need to be refrigerated. Now the truck needs its own reefers and the usda has to come and inspect the coolers to make sure they are in line with all there regulations. In pennsylvania the minimum amount of hens to be inspected is 2,000. Or the last time I checked that was 4 years ago. That means the usda can come strolling in and request to over look every aspect of your egg cleaning/storage. And if they don't like something they put there little labels on them and then you have to follow what the inspector tells you to do with them. PLus they have free range of the stores where you sell. It would be very hard to sell that many eggs to your backyard customers and would need an outlet for your extra. Also don't forget if someone wants to sue you becasue maybe your eggs made them sick with some mysterious way. I was required to carry 10,000-50,000 in liability insurance just to sell to one company.

And the last thing. Not everyone cup of tea is to wake up each morning and go shovel chicken manure and make sure the hens get there daily scoop of feed. In the back yard coop with maybe 4 hens yes its a chore to do but its a hobby not a job. The only reason I do what I do is because I love chickens and my family has been doing it for 4 generations. My great grandfather started out with a hatchery. He sold to many small producers with maybe 500-2k hens and thats how they made. We drive the roads and I can hear my grandfather still say. I remember going to that farm and dropping off a couple hundred chicks. And there in the weeds is an abandoned little chicken barn all falling in.

I'm all for small time farmers. As I am in the boat. Its a strugle but there is a piece of cake for everyone if they do it in the correct maner. I about flipped the day I got a mesage in my inbox saying they wanted 300 cases of my eggs. I had to decline them though and kept the few customers I had. Maybe someday I might just contact them and see if there still interested. I still have tons of space still empty without even worrying about any crowding.

 

[KenK]

Quote:
This surprises me though I suppose it shouldn't. My dad kept about a hundred brood cows on our cow/calf operation and he never made a living at it either.

 

[HollyBird24]

My family are farmers, grain farmers to be exact. It don't think its that different from egg farmer, besides having a different end product. The business end is all very similar. In todays day and age you cannot make enough money to live on if you only have a hobby farm. In order to sustain yourself and live a decent life, you gotta have more acres or more hens. With so many birds or acres, you can't spend time tending to every bird invidually or weeding every field by hand. It just does not work. There are 6 billion people in the world and very little available farmland left, small family farms are unrealistic and a thing of the past.

Go big, or go home.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
They can, with the right equipment. Yet, too many head into a business venture like this with a minimalist approach and a belief that they can overcome the inefficiencies with good ol' hard work. I have heard of small scale producers with a thousand hens who do much of the work by hand and pass the cost on to their customers, e.g., niche markets where they have convinced their customers that $6-$8 per dozen eggs is the "true cost" of sustainable agriculture... ugh....

That is where regional egg processing plants comes in. Most such plants have disappeared from the landscape as the largest producers have vertically integrated and installed in-line processing. Feed literally goes into one end of these facilities and cartons of eggs come out the other end.

We still have one plant operating in central Wisconsin. We send about 1350 dozen eggs there once a week. We are part of a marketing cooperative that takes care of the rest.

If there isn't anything like that available in your area, then yes, you would need to invest in equipment that can process quantities of eggs in a timely matter. Yes, you do have to comply with federal regulations. Yes, you will have to do your own marketing. You probably need a good background in business too. Producing eggs is easy. Selling them is another matter...

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
This surprises me though I suppose it shouldn't. My dad kept about a hundred brood cows on our cow/calf operation and he never made a living at it either.

I make $20-$25k a year keeping 2500 hens. That is a profit margin of about 40 cents per dozen. That is after paying for pullets, feed, electricity, propane, farm insurance, mortgage interest, property taxes, production supplies, repairs and maintenance, etc.

Part of that profit goes to pay the principal on assets such as the hen house and land used in production. After paying for the farm's portion of the mortgage principal, I am probably left with around $1000 per month in cash, which many times may be invested back into more assets. E.g., this summer I bought a $1500 mig welder that has been indispensable for repairs around here. It is a farm asset that I own. If I didn't need it for the farm I probably wouldn't have bought it.

Many times (and on many farms) that is where the profit goes. Back into assets that have their own value or make the farm worth more, but that doesn't necessarily put cash into the farmer's pocket.

 

[KenK]

That would be a "living" here but you would be hard pressed to sell those eggs at a premium unless you marketed them in Atlanta which I suppose would be doable.

How many hours per week do you work in the egg business?

Quote Mac in Wisco:

"Producing eggs is easy. Selling them is another matter..."

I think that squarely hits the nail on the head with most small scale farming endeavors.

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

Quote:
They can, with the right equipment. Yet, too many head into a business venture like this with a minimalist approach and a belief that they can overcome the inefficiencies with good ol' hard work. I have heard of small scale producers with a thousand hens who do much of the work by hand and pass the cost on to their customers, e.g., niche markets where they have convinced their customers that $6-$8 per dozen eggs is the "true cost" of sustainable agriculture... ugh....

That is where regional egg processing plants comes in. Most such plants have disappeared from the landscape as the largest producers have vertically integrated and installed in-line processing. Feed literally goes into one end of these facilities and cartons of eggs come out the other end.

We still have one plant operating in central Wisconsin. We send about 1350 dozen eggs there once a week. We are part of a marketing cooperative that takes care of the rest.

If there isn't anything like that available in your area, then yes, you would need to invest in equipment that can process quantities of eggs in a timely matter. Yes, you do have to comply with federal regulations. Yes, you will have to do your own marketing. You probably need a good background in business too. Producing eggs is easy. Selling them is another matter...

yep totaly true. That was one of the dowfalls of agway. My parents used to produce the eggs put them in flats and ship them off to agway and they would be processed. The in line processing all changed that and they were forced to buy there own equipment to keep up with the "big guys"

And yes your right about the ones that pass on the super high priced eggs. they may be able to sustain what they have but they will never really expand to be able to serve more people. My plan is to try to expand while keeping what i'm doing. Making sure the chickens are treated well and make sure the eggs are high quality. Forgetting thoes 2 rules for me would make me not much better than the Factory farmers.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
It averages about 30 man-hours a week. That is between my wife and I though, so we each put in a little over two hours a day. We pack eggs on flats and move them to the cooler. The eggs are picked up once a week and the rest is handled by our cooperative.

 

[OSUman]

Quote:
It averages about 30 man-hours a week. That is between my wife and I though, so we each put in a little over two hours a day. We pack eggs on flats and move them to the cooler. The eggs are picked up once a week and the rest is handled by our cooperative.

Do you have a "Day job"