To invest or not to invest...
The lady that sold me the 17 Bourbon red eggs just got ahold of me, she still hasn't sold her adult birds and has in the last 7 days collected 18 more eggs... I cannot put them in the incubator of course because its been running for 8 days now... Hubby told me if I wanted to just to go buy another incubator and sell the poults if they hatch...
Oh what to do....
Im getting the 18 eggs for 10 bucks...I can buy another Hova bator like I have without the turner or fan for 45.00.. If I get a good hatch (and that's an if) I can sell the poults for up to 10. each... Sounds great, but there are a lot of what if's there..
What a great opportunity you have here!! But decisions, decisions ---
First, do you have the $55-60 to spend? If not, then of course, don't do it.
Second, can you afford to lose the $10 for the eggs if they don't hatch, and another $10-20 if you have to sell the used Hovabator for $25-35 when you paid $45 for it?
Or alternate worst case scenario, can you afford to lose the $10 for the eggs if they don't hatch, and lose access to the $45 you spent on the Hovabator that you keep for another hatch sometime in the future, or to replace your current incubator if it breaks (because you don't actually lose the $45 if you keep the Hovabator, you just lose the ability to use that money for something else)?
Third, do you have room to brood a second hatch if you can't sell the 1-3 day old poults right away?
Fourth, do you actually want to do it? Just because the opportunity is great doesn't mean that it's something that you want to do.
If the answer to everything is yes, then what's stopping you??? There's the potential that you could make $180 in return for a $55-60 investment, plus retain the use of a $45 piece of equipment, which could give you the opportunity to repeat that income regularly with only an additional $10 investment in eggs. Even if only 6 out of 18 hatch and are sold, you've made your money back and now have a new Hovabator, which you can keep or resell, essentially for free.
If you don't want to buy the new Hovabator but still want to hatch out the eggs, have you gotten onto your local BYC thread to ask if anyone locally has any extra incubator space? You might find someone who would be glad to incubate them for you in exchange for half the hatch, or whatever other payment that you find fair. That way you're only risking $10, and get the chance to meet another poultry enthusiast in person. Or maybe the local feed store would be willing to set up a demonstration of an incubator in use to promote the sale of incubators, and would be willing to use your eggs. They get the sales boost, you get whatever hatches, which you could sell yourself at $10 each, or sell back to them wholesale at say, $5 each, so for a $10 investment in eggs you may lose it all, or potentially make up to $90 with no effort, or up to $180 if you want to deal with the public.
Lots of possibilities. But you need to want to do it.
