Month by month...$ to produce a dozen eggs

[Rock Home Isle]

I've been raising chickens in my backyard for about 4 years. Pick a month and tell us about your flock..."How much does it cost you to produce 12 eggs on a monthly basis?"

For Example: May

We have 4 layers in our backyard flock, 2 Barred Rocks, 2 Black Sexlinks.

Our layer flock layed 119 eggs during the month of May.

That's an average of 3.84 eggs per day. On the 2nd of May, I bought 80 lbs of feed for $28.15.

So it cost me $2.84 cents-ish per dozen eggs. And they were able to convert 0.806 lbs of feed per dozen eggs.

That's an incredible conversion rate, but my birds free range and are very good at supplementing their diet on our property. They don't do nearly so well November through January.

How about your flock?

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Digital App: Tracking the Flock



How many of you keep track of the production of your flock?...How many of you would like too, but you need a framework that works, or would appreciate a little guidance?

I try to keep track of details...it's important to me, it's how I was raised.

I have been using an app on my iPhone for the past few months, and it is very nice for what I want it to be. The app is called Flock Plenty.

I have tried this app for the last few months.

I can keep track of:
-Daily egg counts
-Feed purchases
-I can include notes with each of my entries
-I can include images with my entries
-I can go back and edit any entry
-if I know hatch dates, The app will show me the exact age of my birds. Handy when determining sexual maturity and Age of Lay...etc.
-with a purchase of $4.99 I can run sales and expenses to determine profits and losses

As data is being entered, I can generate daily, weekly & monthly charts and graphs that:
-show egg production
-feed usage
-calculate cost per dozen eggs
-profit & loss ($4.99 fee)

I can also transfer data, between devices, iPhone to iPad for example.

It does have weaknesses though. If you have multiple flocks....pick ONE to track with this app. There is no provision for calculating flock efficiency, even though I can enter my flock in the program, there is no provision to allow me to enter the numbers of birds in my flock.

Without #'s of birds, how does one track flock efficiency...that alone caused me to rate the app *** out of ***** stars.

So there are a few updates that could be made....

After entering my flocks, at the time of this edit, June 9th, 2016:
-My 6 Welsummers are 10 weeks and 6 days old
-My current layer flock of Barred Rocks and Black Sexlinks are 2 years and 1 month old.

Interesting.....

 

[aart]

Too many variables to go by month and my closely kept calculation cycle is based on 'by the bag of feed'.
Overall from 3 years of keeping chickens, a dozen eggs cost anywhere from about $1.50 to $2.75 to produce, that's only based on feed costs.
Higher number is when I am raising/feeding chicks.
Usually come out ahead enough to cover other things like bedding and other supplies, tho I don't keep real close track of that.
Capital costs of building coop and run and buying equipment like feeders/waterers was never put into the equation.....
......that would be too depressing and the goal was for egg sales to cover feed costs.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

Last time I put the pencil to it, it cost me .95c to produce a dozen eggs using layer pellets from TSC.
For some reason all my hens went on strike from Dec-Feb and when they started laying again the first dozen eggs I sold for $3 cost me $20 to produce.
Never had that happen before.....

 

[Spartan22]

This is how mine looks like since August 2015, using Flock Plenty app. I love the daily journal, weekly and monthly graphs. I do a daily emoji of the treats and weather so I can track what affects productions and costs.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

This is how mine looks like since August 2015, using Flock Plenty app. I love the daily journal, weekly and monthly graphs. I do a daily emoji of the treats and weather so I can track what affects productions and costs.

I'm still learning how to use the app...do you enter feed on a daily basis, or make a single bulk entry when you buy the feed?

 

[Spartan22]

I do daily entry on egg production and do expenses when I buy the feeds and beddings etc etc. I also enter the sales weekly.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Ok...cool. That's what I do as well.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

75 eggs for the month of June.

Heat really took its toll....dang!!!

 

[Spartan22]

Month of July 540 eggs!!! Out of 30 maybe 31 layers.

Sold $115.5
Cost $ 75.00