Our Little Egg Business

[wsdareme]

Just want to share some information about the little egg business we've started...

A couple of months ago, much to my surprise my DH suggested that we try selling our extra eggs. Just to the neighbors, he said. Okay, I ordered a couple of signs from Vistaprint.com, my DH found a small refrigerator on Craigslist for $15, and we were in business!

We put the refrigerator on the covered porch of the barn, and they are self serve on the honor system. We're only asking $2.00 a dozen, just to help pay for some feed. We usually get a dozen or so eggs a day, so I usually have a dozen extra eggs per day to sell.

Our neighbors are loving it! One guy buys 3 dozen a week. They have the system down -- put money in the little plastic box (which is not locked up), return egg cartons and put them in the container, and help yourself to the eggs. One neighbor asked if we had anybody stealing. I told him I had no idea -- I never keep track. Just collect the money and cartons and put out more eggs. If somebody is desperate enough to steal, I guess they must need the eggs or money pretty badly.

Here's a picture of the sign we had made:

I've been getting enough money to buy a bag of feed a week, so it's helping to cover costs. And, I have quite a few young pullets that are still several months away from laying, so if I end up keeping them we'll be having a lot more eggs to sell.

The neighbors LOVE the colored eggs (I don't have a single white egg layer). They especially like the Black Copper Marans eggs because they are so dark.

Do any of you have "little egg businesses" that you'd like to share stories about? I'd love to hear your stories!!

 

[Taylor]

I love your egg sign! we run a little egg business too. we also get $2.00 a dozen on ours, and we can't keep them. we have our egg sign on our mailbox, but most people hear from us from friends, family members, craigslist, and i have a weekly lady who works at allstate who gets 5 doz per weeek. and several people from other cities and we make enough to buy feed and pay for the water bill. and we get "free eggs" if you take out the labour part. we just have the standard brown egg layers, delawares, barred rocks, rhode island reds, black sex-links, buff orpingtons, wyandottes, and 1 ameraucana who faithfully lays a egg a day for me. i eat the green eggs from her and most of our customers only want brown eggs. i dunno why? i love having chickens!!!

 

[Erinmir]

I LOVE the self-serve idea!!!!!

DH and I already have a fridge on our porch (we bought a new kitchen fridge - upgraded - and the old one is on the porch as we often entertain) and have been pondering over ways to sell any extra eggs we may end up with when our little flock starts laying. I just love the idea! We often compare the little town we live in to Mayberry (from Andy Griffith) because it is your average quiet little Americana type town. I can totally see our neighbors digging some self-serve eggs, especially since we don't have a little general store right in town or anything.

Do you mind if I swipe your idea?

 

[Mamma_Duck04]

That's really cool. My DH took me home to Maine our first Thanksgiving together & took me down the road to get some honey- self-serve hutch at the road (least a quarter-mile from the house that owned it LOL) with a jar for money- *facing away from the house even*. My little country bumpkin was blown over & he just laughed at me. Then back in the real world of where we have to live till DH retires, we got woke up at 7am today when our neighbor noticed my DH's trucks windows were shot out, JUST FOR KICKS!

So cheers to you that the honor system is working well for you & your neighbors, unfortunately I've gotten too jaded & I think my OCD would go into hyper-drive if I did that

 

[hcppam]

Nice to hear about the self serve you are doing, I was leaning that way, but or electric rates are so high, it would not be cost effective for me ...so they'll have to knock on the door, also I have to keep my sign a bit criptic, as not sure if code enforcement would get on me, so my sign says country fresh eggs, nothing more so we'll see. Now all I need is for the girls to start laying. LOL

 

[Amyh]

What a cute sign!! Right now, I only have 5 layers, but we plan on selling our extras when the rest start laying. We have several customers already lined up because when I do have extras, we give them away to some of my husband's office mates. They are willing to pay $4.00 a dozen in the city!! It will certainly cover our feed bill, which is only about $20 a month.

We have plenty of self service home businesses around here (I live well outside the city where my husband works). I know of honey, fishing worms and plenty of backyard produce that do self serve. I don't know of any egg self service, because I never buy any eggs, but with all the fresh egg signs around here, I'm sure some are self serve. I grew up outside of NYC and never heard of self serve until I moved here. I love that people can still be trusted!! It gives me hope!!

 

[[email protected]]

cool

 

[Mac in Wisco]

We allow folks to help themselves too. We have a small commercial operation where we produce eggs for an organic co-op. Most of our eggs go out in bulk, but we do pack some in cartons for direct sales. The first year we were selling I put a sign out by the road. As people inquired I kind of screened them. If they were local and I had a general idea of who they were I walked them down to the barn and showed them where the egg cooler and coffee can are and told them to just help themselves in the future. If they were just some random out-of-towner I just got the eggs for them.

After some time we had a pretty good customer base and I took the sign down. Now folks just drive down to the barn and help themselves. I think if people had to knock every time we would sell a lot less. They would think they were bothering us, it would take too much time, they would have to make small talk, etc. Helping themselves they are in and out in a couple of minutes. We sell over 100 dozen a month @ $2/dz like this.

My wife also has a small sales route in a nearby city that she does every two weeks. She established the route by stopping in at small, locally owned businesses and asking if anybody there wanted to buy some farm fresh eggs. She established a pretty good customer base and sells around 50 dozen @ $3/dz every two weeks. She then takes that money and does the grocery shopping on the way home.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I only charge $1.50 a dozen right now, but I am off the beaten path. I just got a new customer, a restaurant, so they buy 6 dozen at a time. I was thinking about the self serve thing ,but people are scared of my big dog. And I would have to build someplace to keep the fridge dry because our porch is too small. But I may do it anyway. I do need to sell more eggs. I sell a lot of mine for hatching, so I get better money for those;-)

 

[discoveregg]

We have a local farmer who has a self serve produce barn. I love it! They have a scale for you to weigh your veggies and an unlocked cash box for deposit. I've NEVER seen that before, was totally confused when I first drove up and no one was there

. The farmer had to come out and explain the process. I wish he lived closer, I would always buy my produce from him.