The price of eggs

[HoneyBerry]

Best to keep it on the small side so that the animals continue to be well cared for. Sometimes the chickens don't produce like you want. Then what do you do with the chickens? Just think about all the possibilities so that you are prepared. Best to expand slowly, in my opinion.
I don't eat eggs at all anymore because of all the abuse videos I've seen. Things can get out of hand if things get too big.

[imafan26]

We are feeling the pinch in Hawaii too. A dozen eggs are $6. It would be better not to add stock from outside sources until the bird flu thing is over. The local farms here also are having a problem replacing their aging hens because the broodstock is usually imported as well. If your girls are healthy, you do not want to risk importing the disease. Incubate your own eggs and if you replace anything it should be the rooster for genetic diversity just make sure it is certified free of the disease by a vet. Since your girls are healthy, try to keep them that way. The problem here is that birds fly. The farms here have issues with wild birds coming in bringing disease, mostly it has been a problem with them carrying salmonella.

[HoneyBerry]

MG: Your chickens are treated right. I'd like to buy some of your eggs if I was closer. You seem to have lots of things that I like. Eggs from pampered chickens and grasshoppers with boots.
My friends K & T have urban chickens with a coop that is fancier than most people's houses.
T built it for K because she wanted chickens. The coop has a trendy garden style roof and was featured in a local magazine. It even has an address - their house address plus 3/4. (their basement apartment is 1/2). So I can send the chickens a Christmas card if I want to. It is the fanciest coop in the neighborhood. K & T dote on the hens and they lay cute little greenish colored eggs for them. I don't have a problem with eggs from pampered chickens. But I do find those factory farms to be rather disgusting, to say the least.

[MichaelC]

We had one rooster, Cyrus, that I sent to a neighbor's farm who wanted to diversify his genetic pool. Good luck, mister--Cyrus will diversify all over the place, and peck you every chance he gets!

I'm curious about whether Cyrus was named after the character on Trailer Park Boys, they sound like two peas in a pod.

[sweetiepie]

I am the last person to discourage someone from having 40 hens. Except to say, that if you plan on keeping hens for 8-10 years and I have found that they start laying less than expected after about 3, (start costing you more on input than output), can you manage that many elderly chickens and still be able to add young chickens down the road to keep up your customer base, without having 60 or more chickens in the next 5 years. (Numbers just an example.) Just thinking a little further down the line. That would be the only negative I could see.

[imafan26]

Thank you for explaining that. I thought farms didn't bother to keep roosters around because the hens will just lay sterile eggs and so it does not matter if they are fertilized. The chicken farm I know buys their chicks from a local hatchery. I don't know how the hatchery gets their fertilized eggs,especially since they are in a mixed residential/light industrial neighborhood.

Feral chickens are all over the place. Mostly they are jungle fowl. The roosters are usually easier to handle and some are happy to be picked up, its the hens that can be vicious. You are right, the roosters will crow at a full moon, they have no sense of time and crow whenever they feel like it.

[gumbo2176]

I picked up 18 extra large brown eggs from the local market this morning and was hit with sticker shock when at the register. They were $5.59 for the carton. That's the most I've ever had to pay for eggs. Several laying hens are looking good at this point in time. LOL

[imafan26]

$5.59 is less than we pay. The price of eggs has come down some. I think because demand has dropped as people buy more of the equally expensive cereal, pancake mix, and bread for alternate breakfasts. I think at costco the highest price for 5 dozen eggs was around $16.00 and it has come down to around $12. More people are buying the smaller 18 count eggs and less of the 5 dozen but in the end it comes out more expensive that way.

There has been a rash of dead feral chickens that have been found. The DOH said it is not the Avian Flu but more likely someone is poisoning them. It is still a very cruel thing to do.