Mac McCarty

tel jetson wrote:
how well does your feed keep over two months? I've found that two weeks is about all I can store feed before it goes stale and the birds won't touch it until they're really hungry. sort of turned me off buying feed at all.

I would expect it to keep for longer than two weeks.

I do see a slight difference in our bulk feed after about two weeks of storage though. Our birds eat about 5000 lbs a week and I order 2-3 weeks at a time. It is milled right before delivery. After two weeks or so I see a slight decrease in egg weights. With a fresh batch of feed I see a slight increase in egg weights. I'm not sure why this is. I see this effect even in the depths of our Wisconsin winter when the feed is kept below freezing. Either they are eating slightly less feed or the nutritional value drops slightly in that time frame. I don't know...

However, this effect is ever so slight. It's not like they are refusing to eat or starving to death because of poor feed quality. Since I collect over 300 lbs of eggs each day, and record the total egg mass and the number of eggs each day, I can see variations in average egg weight of less than one-half of one percent from day to day and see whether average egg size is trending up or down.

Brendan Getchel wrote:As a matter of principle, we GIVE our eggs away to close friends, family, and (sometimes) neighbors. My wife and I refuse to sell anything that cheaply and support such a ridiculous perception of value.

Why are those prices out of line? I can get an 18-week-old ready-to-lay certified organic pullet for $7.50. After a year of laying they are worth around $1 as a live bird from the farm (or whatever I could convince somebody to pay). I could dress them out and sell them as organic stewing hens for $6, maybe $7, each. (Comparable to $3 per lb). What makes you think that live layer is worth more than $5?

Hi all, I'm new here, having stumbled across this post on egg prices.

We have a couple thousand hens and sell our eggs though an organic marketing cooperative. We produce the eggs and the cooperative hauls them to a contracted processing plant where they are processed, packaged, and shipped out to retail markets.

Our production is USDA Certified Organic with hens kept cage free in a large hen house and having seasonal access to pasture.

At retail, our eggs fetch around $4.50 under the co-op's label.

From the farm I charge $2.50 per dozen for Jumbo eggs in our own cartons. The $2.50 is based on the the wholesale price we'd get for the eggs (just under $2 a dozen) plus a small amount for the extra labor and carton. Sometimes we deliver eggs into town. If we have to deliver them we charge $3 a dozen.