January 2011 Chicken financials

  I made $25.31 for the month on an average 27 hens laying (all my hens are now laying, the babies that were supposed to lay blue eggs are now laying small green eggs).  Obviously, for the year I am positive $25.31!!!!   Woo hoo!  I had $52.19 in expenses for feed (250#) this month (I had some carry over from December and the weather has been exceptionally warm for January so the chickens are foraging quite a bit).  We collected a total of 437 usable eggs (46 more than last month) averaging 14.1 eggs/day collected. The chickens ate 0.57#food/egg.  It cost $0.12/egg or $1.44/doz for January.  The quail produced 24 eggs.  At this rate I will be able to make pickled quail eggs every 2 months.  I already have the recipe picked out.  The price of feed is still up.  I need to buy some more bedding this month and build an enclosure for the quail so I can get the baby area ready for another dozen hens.  So it is looking like the price increase is coming.  I am going to start telling the customers it is coming, probably in the next 1-2 months.  I will try and delay it as long as possible.  
Annmarie wants some bantam chickens. She is afraid the cats will eat them.  I have been scoping out a spot for them and a small coop.  I am thinking 6-9 hens, with an elevated chicken coop and attached nesting boxes (would only need 2 boxes).  I already picked out a spot just across the creek in front of our house.  I would just need to add a little fencing.  This is a future project.  She can have whatever breed of chicken she wants.  The coop would be small enough that I could use a solar powered shed light to give the chickens light during the Winter so they would keep laying.  


It is looking more and more like the bridge rebuild is the Spring project.  It needs to be done.