Home raised eggs, cost more, but are worth it.

I have been without hens since late summer, due to the Redtails, and coyotes, Six hens provide all we, and the kids need, and I have often told myself, that the price of feed, didn't warrant keeping chickens. Now that I have had store bought eggs, for 3 months, I have really changed my mind. I cleaned the old chicken house out today, and the son will have the new roof on by noon tomarrow, Every Sat. they have a poultry auction at Coal Creek, down by Chehalis, and come 11"00 am I intend to be bidding on some more Biddies, and maybe a sacrificial Rooster. The hawks always get the Rooster's first. My new fence should keep the coyotes out of the game, but a danged hawk hits when you are not present, and is airborne before you can react,If you do happen to be there.

hey i got a solution killer he is a bard rock nailed 11 people so far better a gaurd dog havnt lost a hen yet he shows up once in while missing a few feathers but. should seen the time he was struttin along top bird nobody messed with him forgot one thing hot wire got it on top of head went straight up came down on same wire ever see a chicken dance he finnally got loose but the look on his face he wanted a piece of whatever got him tried givin him away no takers cheap entertainment

Theres a big difference in fresh eggs and old store eggs.Had a teen boy tell me that fresh eggs taste funny.He didnt like them.All he ever had was store eggs.Store eggs can be called fresh for 30 day and often get reboxed.Eggs lose quality in the refridgerator.Mark the date on an egg and let it sit for 30 days and compare it to a fresh laid egg.Hens that have quit laying go to auctions.You dont need a rooster for egg production..Buy some pullets, they begin laying at 20 weeks.My hens go out in hot weather and spend time under the pickup when its real hot.You have to expect losses to hawks and foxes.Thats why you keep a shotgun handy by the back door.

Never had a problem with Yotes, even though I had one that would come through my yard on a daily basis. He'd always stop by the Sheepie's pen & watch them but never really bothered them. After loosing a few hens to the Red Tails I got smart and put a chicken wire cover over the chicken pen. Red Tails got a real rude awakening the next time they tried to grab a hen.

Doc

farmerwithmutt:

Back in the mid-80's neighbors down the road who were moving gave us some Ducks, Geese, Hens, and a Banty Rooster who thought he was king cock-of-the-walk. This rooster had huge spurs & really long, sharp toe-nails. He tried to nail me but I was prepared, had a chicken-crook made from 10 guage Copper wire, & a pair of linemans pliers in my hip pocket. Rooster quickly found out who the REAL boss was.

Doc

I had to look that one Doc.
Crook

Get a couple large breed geese they are pretty good keeping out predators.Also I wouldn't buy hens at an auction as they are usually older hens that are past their prime get a group of pullets or young female chicks and raise them they'll be ready to lay once the warm weather comes.

I've bought hens from auctions before, and had no trouble. Sometimes the auctions will even have young pullets. You'll never know until you go! You nned a couple roosters around just for a little protection, even if they are not needed for egg production.

If your pen is tall enough for you to walk in with out ducking, run fishing line all over the top from side to side and end to end, it will keep the flyers away if you keep in just the pen. Yahoo news done a study while back and found the eggs in the store are already two months old before hitting the shelves. My daughter has 24 birds and sells the extra for feed and saves the rest, 2.00 a doz it works for her. Now she is eating her profits.

I agree the cost far is far more to keep hens than store bought. It's well worth it to me as the quality is far better.

I keep a dozen hens and 1 rooster. I buy 25 straight run chicks and butcher the roosters. I'm going to buy a different breed every year so I can easily track how old they are and rotate them out when they get too old.

Predators are a big problem here so free ranging is not an option. They stay in a coop. I have taken some grief over that. My response is "is it better to keep them in a coop or let them be eaten alive by the coons, coyotes and hawks".

My coop is 8'X20' and built on 6"X6" skids. I move it with my Farmall Super H. It has no floor so hens have access to fresh grass and bugs when I move it every 3-4 days. I also feed then fresh greens out of the garden. All that helps keep the feed bill low.

Last summer we had a terrible raccoon infestation until we applied a zero tolerance policy and ended up eliminating over 30 raccoons from the farm. This summer we had an owl that was being a pest, but I found a strategic miss put the fear of god in him and he never stopped by again.

We have about ten Rhode Island Reds that are getting really old and a few Red Rangers getting ready to lay.

My favorite experience was last Christmas my mother was cooking dinner and she was short one egg for her recipe, my wife went out to the coop and brought in a fresh warm egg! Do that without chickens around!

Jim

Been years since chickens but house was 15 x 25' and outside pen was same size with 6' high wire around it, birds would try to fly out so covered the pen with chicken wire and no more loose birds and also no other unwanted would be in there. Always had about 100 hens out of 300 straight run chicks.

It's kind of ironic that yesterday I finally figured up the cost of the eggs we gather. Being an old former livestock guy who likes to crunch numbers I keep track of cost of production on everything, though my figures CAN BE FLAWED.

We have 15 HyLine chickens the granddaughters got free as chicks last spring. The stipulation was the girls had to show them at the Clay County Fair last September. They're supposed to be the big guns in laying production. They are putting out an average of 13.5 eggs a day from the 15 of them. I weighed the eggs and they average 2.5 oz each. We buy the feed in 50 LB bags from the farm store. The feed is crumbles mixed for layers. A bag is $14.00 and they eat 5 pounds of feed a day on average if they're locked inside, 4 pounds when we let them outside in the 14X40 foot pen.

Anyway, I came up with $1.24 per dozen eggs [u:b5fd1b0a3e]for feed alone [/u:b5fd1b0a3e]. Then for this winter there's 5 gallons of water every 3.5 days, one heat lamp, the water heater under the water and two 100 watt lights that come on at 5:00AM and hut off at 8:AM. In the summer there's practically no electricity to worry about. I don't know what the equipment cost is exactly. We have one waterer we purchased new last summer, the nests and feeder are ancient ones I resurrected. I made the roosts out of old used lumber. We use one bag of wood chips per month for bedding.

I don't know how to expense out the $1000.00 I put in the building last spring for new skids, insulating, new sheeting on three sides re-siding, six new windows, rewiring and new roof. That expense can be spread out over 30 years, I suppose.

So to summarize it, I'd guess a dozen eggs from our chicken house costs us $1.75. Jim [u:b5fd1b0a3e][/u:b5fd1b0a3e][u:b5fd1b0a3e][/u:b5fd1b0a3e][u:b5fd1b0a3e][/u:b5fd1b0a3e]

It's just hard to beat the color and flavor of an egg that was produced by a chicken that has been outside all day and the majority of the diet has been from bugs or worms. Yes, we have problems with raccoons, opossums and coyotes also.

Don't use enough eggs to justify cost to produce myself. Actually never was fond of the yolk, so store bought eggs are fine with me.

Back in the 50's and 60' pop had around 400 layers plus enough roosters to keep the preditors honest. That was in the day when every feed mill and grocery store bought eggs every morning. Alaways had 150 or so pullets around ready to replace the older hens. Haven't had any chickens aroumd for 20 years. That situation will be corerected this spring. Chickens were always funny and interesting critters to have around.

If you have a good fence then hawks are easy to also keep out. I use the tall 8 foot fence posts and then string twine in X patterns across the pen. A hawk will not fly down into and under such things due to the fact they have a hard time getting back out. I have had chicken for years and have yet to loose one to a hawk but coons well I had to add an electric fence to keep them at bay

My eggs probably cost a couple of dollars a piece from from the girls.
Keeping a rooster around results in fertile eggs which have a much longer shelf life. Vs the "dead" eggs sold in stores.

Neighbor put a fence over his chickens to keep hawks out. That fence drove the hawks crazy.

Fortunately there are a lot of people that are enamored with the idea of raising chickens and selling eggs around here. For everyone that finds out it is not a profitable business, there is someone else willing to step in and try it. So....I just buy mine from neighbors. When one source calls it quits I just search CL for another source.

We have 4 chickens in the back yard, and I guess we have about $750 in them.

Our eggs are probably worth about $50 a dozen. ??

But, we didn't do it for the economy of the matter.

Gene

Buick, are you sure about the longer shelf life of a fertilized egg? I've heard since I was a little kid it was the other way around. I have no scientific basis to prove my theory so I just have to go by hearsay. Isn't that the way we base our theories anyway? Jim

When we raised chickens (when the kids were here) we had chickens and put chicken wire across the top as well as the sides stretched over a treated board frame. Our problems were primarily Opossoms which would dig under the frame but putting additional wire out, like you do to keep a dog in a fence worked.

A few sell farm eggs around here but I don't buy them because I know not of their history and I have to bother the farmer when I want some. They usually go for $2 a dozen. The eggs I buy are about $3.80 in the store.

I buy Egg-land's best Cage Free from the local grocery stores. Vegetarian fed hens, large brown. Yokes are orange and are advertised to be an excellent source of D, B12, E and a good source of B2 and B5. Plus 115mg Omega 3 and 25% less saturated fat than regular eggs. You can almost throw the egg into the skillet and the yoke will stand up like a young lady's ..... The 2 of us go through a couple of dozen a week and pass our cholesterol tests at our annual or less blood tests. I don't worry about it anyway as I take Coenzyme Q-10 which keeps the pipes soft and prevents problems associated with the blockage, if there is any.

Works for me.

Mark