These are the financials for all of 2016. I want to preface theses numbers with a disclaimer. I have not even reviewed the numbers prior to writing this blog entry so as to not be influenced by its results. While inputting all the chicken egg financials I noticed one disturbing trend, I didn't particularly care for getting eggs every day. I collected them around every fifth day until December when I told Annmarie I would collect them every day I have been doing that this year and it is helping. I also started culling roosters at the end of November. This allowed the hens some much needed rest and it cut down on the number of mouths I was feeding which boosted productivity.
On average I had 24.4 laying hens (I am down to 22 hens in 2017) giving me 7.4 eggs/day(decrease 0.8eggs/day) for a productivity rate of 30% (3% decrease). I am going to blame most of this lousy productivity rate on piss poor egg collection and rooster harassment. I am feeding on average 166.7chicken feed/month(increase 11.1 #/month) for a grand total of 2000# this year already (600#increase). My monthly feed bill is $38.69/month (increase $1.83/month). My feed costs are $2.28/doz (increase of $0.34/doz)with my total cost of production at $2.44/doz (includes feed and bedding only this year, no chickens). My chickens are consuming 0.74 lbs food/egg produced (increase 0.11 lbs/egg). It is costing me $0.16/egg (increase of 0.01/egg) in feed. I have collected 2695 eggs to date (increase in 1204 eggs). My total feed costs are $425.64 (increase of $113.91).
In summary my income was $658 and my total expenses were $494.82. In 2016 I made a profit of $163.18! This is horrible, if I had purchased chicks it would have been around $50. So say I only made $100 for the entire year and I collected 2700 eggs my profit per egg is $0.037. So using my daily average eggs collected I am making $0.27/day!! So for anyone complaining that $4/doz is too much you can clearly see that it is not.
If I were to raise the price to $5/dozen I would only gain $224 annually for a new total of $387 annually. This point is really moot as Annmarie does not want me to raise the price. The real problem is the cost of feed has gone up every year. The only way I have kept costs down is by buying a ton of feed at a time when it is on sale. If I bought it by the bag my costs would increase $3/bag or another $120 annually. So if feed prices were standard and I had to buy chicks I would have been in the red!!! This is why fresh small farm produce, animals and products are expensive. It costs a lot to produce them. Annmarie found us another egg customer today so we should be good now. I have been keeping track of expenses and egg costs since 2010. My format was pretty bare bones when I started so it would be hard to compare years but by 2012 I had this format. One of these days I should put it all into an excel spreadsheet and compare the years for fun. I can make some graphs. My work is definitely bleeding over into my personal life.
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