BarredBuff's Homesteading Shenanigans

[Beekissed]

50 hens are mine and a few roosters. I'll save a few from my current flock too. Planning on selling eggs again.

What do you all think is a fair price for farm eggs? Planning on making some signs.

Depends on your area, BB. With that many chickens you are going to have a big egg problem to dispense, so I'd be looking at health foods stores and farm markets to sell to or do a commission thing from. My local town has two or three such places that take eggs from certain local providers....in that setting, their eggs are quite high in price and they GET that price, because they are marketing to city folks.

If you are out in the country or even the burbs and there are other people in the area with the same idea, your market price will have to be set much lower, as will your expectations. It also matters if your target group are health conscious people or they are just run of the mill Walmart folks.

You might also think of throwing in with another vendor at an actual weekend farmer's market who doesn't have eggs but would like to offer that along with their other items, as the tent or booth rental for those can be quite prohibitive for mere egg sellers. Eggs at farmer's markets I've been to look pretty pitiful and the prices are very high, but they get it because they are selling, once again, to the city folks.

I'd be looking for a potential market now, before an egg ever hits a nest, as you may find yourself with tons of eggs and no good market. Even a sign at the end of the drive may not help you sell the excess.

You being young and ambitious may just work for you when it comes to those other opportunities, especially if you can go in there with some excellent information about the health of your intended product, your competitive pricing and what you've done to set your eggs apart from others. Then you sweeten the pot when you DO get a vendor by giving them free eggs as a bonus.

 

[Beekissed]

You got a cellar for storing all those spuds or are you going to sell those as well?

 

[BarredBuff]

I'm going to try my best to sell my eggs to the local health nuts. We have several transplanted city folks that live, and have businesses here that would love farm fresh, free range eggs. I want to try and contract with them to sell eggs to them once production starts up like crazy. I can probably sell them cheaper than what they currently sell. I just want to pay my feed bills and supplies, and any extra is gravy. Our church also does a food pantry once a month, and I would like to give some away through that avenue if possible.

I'll be canning, storing, and eating all of my spuds! We have an unheated basement to store root crops, and an emptying pantry to fill. I also want to experiment with a tater hole outside to store carrots, onions, sweet potatoes and Irish taters in.

This last part of the week has been very productive. The John Deere gator is up and running well. I have hauled two loads of rotted hay to the compost from the back field, and a load of manure from the neighbors. I will be hauling manure most of the day tomorrow to the garden.

My Zinnias and Cosmos are coming up well. I only have one tomato sprouted, but hopefully more will be up in the morning when I go to water the greenhouse. I also started my sweet potato plants this week.

Busy week, and more work to come! SO wonderful to be back!

 

[FarmerJamie]

Re: eggs
Are you planning on tracking your costs?
Eggs around here are $2.50 per dozen, farmers market, arou nd $5.00. It appears brown eggs fetch a higher price for some reason.

Kentucky is a long way for us to drive for a couple dozen eggs. Lolol.

 

[sumi]

BB, a few years ago I had a big flock and sold free range eggs locally. I had customers for each day of the week, except Sundays, so I know I had a buyer for my eggs as they came daily. I also had a waiting list and people dropping in now and then for eggs, so any extras were usually snapped up very quickly! Some of my best customers were local B&B owners, who needed the eggs for their guests. See if you can get into a place like that as supplier? They will take quite a few eggs and in busy season they may help you get rid of any surplus eggs you may have as well. If it's legal and allowed by you, start collecting egg cartons now already. That's an expense saved. To maximise your potential profit and cut down on expense, buy your feed in bulk, directly from the source, if possible. Big flocks of beaks need a LOT of feed!

 

[Marianne]

Just a few thoughts...
To help with expenses, I was able to get shredded paper from where my daughter worked to use on the coop floor. Also got bags of leaves from a friend in the fall. Both were okay. A couple bags of leaves started to compost in the bag as they weren't dry enough. But overall, I liked using the grass after we mowed the best. I'd let it lay out to dry, then just added small layers to the coop. Sometimes, a few handfuls of fresh mowed grass freshened up the coop as well.
The last time I had a bunch of chicks, I cut ragweed and lambsquarter, leaving it on the bush, and just put it in the run. It was fun watching them almost climb on the ragweed to get to some of the leaves.
If you have too many eggs, you can always scramble some and feed them back to the hens.
Remind your buyers that they can stock up on eggs for the holiday baking season by just putting them in a gallon freezer bag and popping them in the freezer.
After you get a little established, you can always make a little sign asking them to bring their own containers/egg cartons (because it's the eco-friendly thing to do, not that you're cheap, right?)
85 chicks. What fun!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

My eggs occasionally outpace my customers. I take some to work, take some to church, sell some at roadside. Roadside is difficult b/c of weather issues, and I'm on a little dead end road. I have a sign at the front end of our road, but folks whizzing by won't bother to drive down. Even though my eggs are in a cooler, I can't or won't put them out when it's stormy, below freezing or super hot. Lately, I sell every egg the girls produce, and could sell more. I would love to hook up with someone at Farmer's market to move my product, without having to dedicate my time to do so.

 

[Britesea]

When I was selling duck eggs, I had to pay for some Jumbo sized cartons, since they wouldn't fit in the easily found and recycled commercial cartons. I started offering to buy back the jumbo cartons from my customers- something like .25 per for clean cartons in good condition, which helped to cover the cost of having bought them.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I have some customers who faithfully bring back their cartons every time they buy eggs, and they are almost always in pristine condition. Other customers NEVER return a carton. Some will hang on to them until they bring me a huge bag full. Then, there's the folks who NEVER buy eggs from me, but they save their cartons for me. It all seems to work out in the end. Any carton with so much as a smudge gets used for kindling.

 

[sumi]

When I started raising my future laying hens from chicks, I started collecting egg cartons. By the time I got my first egg, I had over 1,000 cartons! A few months later I talked a neighbouring farmer into getting hens and selling eggs too, as I simply couldn't keep up with the demand. He got some chicks and one day asked me where he can get cartons, so I took a whole lot of mine over to him. Win-win for us both