I wish those numbers worked here in West Tennessee. I have 50 laying hens and I sell to supermarkets and to the public. All I can get is $3 a dozen, so by the time I buy the feed and the egg cartons my profit is about $1 a dozen. But I guess I don't do it for the money, I just like doing it.
Interesting. I live in Central NY, its a blend of farm and city area. $3 a dozen is on the cheaper end. I have seen $5 from some sellers. I think $3.50-$4.50 is the most common.
My eggs sell for 3 a dozen. Feed is not cheap. Could you imagine if the grocery stores just gave all the food away instead of paying the bills ? Not likely. Good job! Thanks for the tips for profiting.
We have a new regenerative organic farm and our first product is eggs. We use local organic feed, organic food preparation kitchen scraps, forage them on cover crops on our farm, use a chickshaw with rollaway nest box (no need to clean nor refrigerate), keep them in a very large always grass hay covered pen in the winter, are off grid etc... All the best practices one could think of. People pay for our good practices, soil regeneration, use of healthy organic veggie waste and climate conscious methods. We are starting out at $6 and will move to $8 when the eggs are a bit bigger (new flock). Farmer's Market in Santa Fe is $9 and no one is doing all of our practices. Eggs in the co-op are even more for pastured and organic. If you don't care nor know about CAFOs then you might think $3 or 4 a dozen is fair, but if you care more about the chicken's well being, the workers, the CAFO's neighbors and climate change then you realize that grocery store prices are unreasonable for small scale local eggs.
Good, non gmo feed is at least $21-$24 per 50lb bag. That many birds, raised on pasture, moved everyday, eats one bag every 2 days. You can make money to pay for the feed basically. Recovering other costs takes a while. IMO, laying hens requires more than 500 birds to be considered a profitable, standalone enterprise on a farm. All new farms should consider it though because of one main reason - soil health. Thanks for the video.
Good advice. Mine at best break even with the social climate here (people scoff at $5/dozen soy free organic pastured - happy to buy GMO confinement $4/dozen, go figure.) It would probably take $8/dozen to make it worth it financially, but the long term soil fertility is not to be underestimated.
We can't make the numbers work for 500+ layers on grass. Quality feed is too expensive. Selling eggs at $7 a dozen limits your market heavily. We can talk all day about how food should cost more, farmers should be able to get better prices- but the reality is that our society's economic framework is not compatible with expensive eggs, regardless of how right or wrong that is. These youtubers and book writers will have you believing that anyone can do it, it's easy money and that we should all be small farmers- they are selling you a fantasy. It is difficult, dirty, and sometimes heartbreaking work for very little money.
Yea it gets old seeing guys like this pretending they are making money on a "farm" and crunching the numbers on 20 chickens and showing 0 expensive or anything. Just so they can sell there ideologies to people with small farms instead of actually showing you any useful farming tips it's all just click bait videos of how anyone can be a full time farmer with little to no effort or knowledge. And if you use there "sustainable" agricultural practices that people will pay double or more than what your produce is worth. I live in east TN and have never even seen organic eggs at the farmers market for $7 a dozen most of the time around $3 to $6 depends if they are sized and or certified organic
Farming isn't for weak people, it's for the hardest working people. Not many of them in the last 3 generations unfortunately, just coddled adult children. I sold eggs in San Diego for 7-8 a dozen easily. I made a living market gardening as well. Was it easy? No! Stop complaining and get to work or go work in an office!
@@NaturesAlwaysRight I run a 650 acre regenerative farm in East Texas- we run cattle, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks, laying hens, broilers, hogs, and a market garden that could fit 10 or 15 of your little backyard operations into. I don't require a lecture about hard work from you. If you want to have an adult conversation about the economic framework that is stacked against small producers at every level, great. Outside of that, you are here selling people bullshit and lies so that you get some youtube clicks. You sound like some kind of low level Joel Salatin lol.
5iveArrow: And then, we have the Amish. What’s their secret to the insane productivity of their modest farms? Not long ago a contingent of Amish moved from Mexico to Belize and soon dominated vegetable and chicken production. One key is their simple lifestyle frees them from wasting money.
Thanks for making this video! I'd like to know what other people are doing to make money with their livestock. I'd like to sell home-grown eggs but can't make the numbers work. Even with $7/dozen. For the week where you might get 48 dozen eggs, that is $336/week. If you value your time and spend 30 minutes/day taking care of the chickens, that would include gathering eggs, feeding, watering, and other maintenance, that is 3.5 hours/week at a cost of $15/hour (what do you value farm help time at?), you are left with $283.50. To buy organic, soy-free feed for 100 chickens, at 1/3lb / bird / day, that's 233lbs/week - that would eat the rest of the income (and more) and leave no profit. We raise chickens to get high quality eggs but I'd rather feed extras to the hogs and dogs, or compost them than sell them for what people are willing to pay as the investment return would be greater.
The root of the price disparity issue is that corn is subsidized by tax dollars. The organic, soy-free grain is not. That means we are all paying for those cheap eggs you buy from the store and from your competitor down the road via tax dollars. If we could eliminate the subsidies, we could then allow price discovery to occur and chicken and egg prices would increase significantly and it wouldn't sound so absurd to pay real dollars for real food.
Grow and process your own feed. There will be things you may still need to buy at times but most of the fees will be able to be grown. Saves a lot of money. Money saved is money earned
That's why Joel combines egg laying with cow pasture conditioning. He makes a little money on eggs, but quite a bit on the beef. The eggs pay for the chickens, basically. If you can use them for fertility and pest control you're WAY ahead.
Interesting topic Steven. Judging by the comments I guess it depends on where you live. Here in Nova Scotia government has now restricted every small farmer to 100 meat birds, per property per year 😳. Then there’s the price of feed here (not to mention organic). It’s rough. We supplement with food scraps and grain… Never be discouraged by critical commenters Steven. The Lord is on your side and using you in mighty ways. You may never know the impact you’re having in this world. Absolutely inspiring!!! We’re going back to Eden!
To all these people complaining that you can't get X amount for a dozen, if you actually watched the video we said $5-7 is the range of prices customers are willing to pay in the area and that's based on what I know farms are making in the area. You guys are bragging about not being able to make more money then enviously saying how dare you try and make more, get outta here with that c0mmie nonsense. Do you even know how much nutrition is in a single egg when raised properly? How much you pay for that poison Starbucks you are slurpin on or the soda/beer you drink every week! People all around the USA pay easily $7 a dozen for truly organic soy free and pastured eggs (and it's worth it!), even stores sell their most premium eggs for $7 a dozen, doesn't a small farmer you can trust deserve at least that much? Just because YOU can't get those prices doesn't mean others can't and aren't, is your product even as good? It's about context, where you live, how much/what quality do you pay for feed, and how much pasture/woods you have available. etc. This is just a very simple short video example of a larger conversation you didn't see, YOU figure out your costs, only you can determine those numbers and figure out your profit margin.
Hah, I've went on that exact rant. Maybe something constructive could be gathering advice from different farms on how they reached the right customers, or how those customers were able to reach them. I have a few great customers, and honestly only keep doing it for them. They encouraged me from the start, and have requested different products. Kind of a Salatin line, but customer quality should also be assessed!
Good information. We can't raise chickens in our current situation. I'd much rather support local farmers and it's much better life for the animals. Plus benefits the land when done right imo. Good eggs cost $8 per dozen (Canadian) on the west coast. Thanks for sharing :)
My chickens are laying fantastically the only thing is I've given to neighbors friends family and the dogs and pigs and yet I'm still throwing eggs down the drain apparently there is no farmers market nearby tried churches that was a no-go I also tried to find places that give food out to those who are in need again no luck at my old place I could sell eggs all day long and I always gave to the senior pantry. Never would I think I would have too many eggs so I would say to others if you're moving into a new area you really need to check out where you can sell or get rid of your product
Don't waste the eggs. Feed the eggs back to your chickens. Either raw mixed into feed or just cracked into a feeder bowl or cook them and they will devour them and save you money on feed.
$7 a dz for chicken eggs is a complete joke. If you're selling chicken eggs for $7dz then you're selling them to rich customers who think they're making a charitable contribution to a nonprofit.
A truly organic operation should not be adding restaurant scraps or coffee grounds to the compost pile. Those things were not grown by organic methods and will contribute pesticide residues. All-organic restaurants and coffee shops are rather rare. To produce a real organic product, all inputs must also be organically produced.
Your philosophy isn't the same as mine, but I recognize it as a legitimate take on things. You're probably getting the pushback from the "shame on you" part of your comment. Most people will respect your life choices if you respect theirs. It doesn't mean we'll all agree, but we'll get along with each other.
Tim, I am assuming from your comment that you live 100% self sufficiently for your food. Otherwise, you would be commodifying the plants and/or animals that you buy from the store. Shame on you! Respect begets respect.
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I wish those numbers worked here in West Tennessee. I have 50 laying hens and I sell to supermarkets and to the public. All I can get is $3 a dozen, so by the time I buy the feed and the egg cartons my profit is about $1 a dozen. But I guess I don't do it for the money, I just like doing it.
Interesting. I live in Central NY, its a blend of farm and city area. $3 a dozen is on the cheaper end. I have seen $5 from some sellers. I think $3.50-$4.50 is the most common.
My eggs sell for 3 a dozen. Feed is not cheap. Could you imagine if the grocery stores just gave all the food away instead of paying the bills ? Not likely. Good job! Thanks for the tips for profiting.
Rotation is key
We have a new regenerative organic farm and our first product is eggs. We use local organic feed, organic food preparation kitchen scraps, forage them on cover crops on our farm, use a chickshaw with rollaway nest box (no need to clean nor refrigerate), keep them in a very large always grass hay covered pen in the winter, are off grid etc... All the best practices one could think of. People pay for our good practices, soil regeneration, use of healthy organic veggie waste and climate conscious methods. We are starting out at $6 and will move to $8 when the eggs are a bit bigger (new flock). Farmer's Market in Santa Fe is $9 and no one is doing all of our practices. Eggs in the co-op are even more for pastured and organic. If you don't care nor know about CAFOs then you might think $3 or 4 a dozen is fair, but if you care more about the chicken's well being, the workers, the CAFO's neighbors and climate change then you realize that grocery store prices are unreasonable for small scale local eggs.
We can pull 5/dozen for organic, free range eggs here in SE PA, and getting good prices on feed from an amish feed mill
Same here in Northern California but no access to good prices from feed mill
Yes! I’m so grateful to be in Amish country.
dozen eggs goes for 3 or 4 bucks here.
organic free range eggs?
I've never paid more than $4 cdn from my local small farm.
Good, non gmo feed is at least $21-$24 per 50lb bag. That many birds, raised on pasture, moved everyday, eats one bag every 2 days. You can make money to pay for the feed basically. Recovering other costs takes a while. IMO, laying hens requires more than 500 birds to be considered a profitable, standalone enterprise on a farm. All new farms should consider it though because of one main reason - soil health. Thanks for the video.
Good advice. Mine at best break even with the social climate here (people scoff at $5/dozen soy free organic pastured - happy to buy GMO confinement $4/dozen, go figure.) It would probably take $8/dozen to make it worth it financially, but the long term soil fertility is not to be underestimated.
We can't make the numbers work for 500+ layers on grass. Quality feed is too expensive. Selling eggs at $7 a dozen limits your market heavily. We can talk all day about how food should cost more, farmers should be able to get better prices- but the reality is that our society's economic framework is not compatible with expensive eggs, regardless of how right or wrong that is. These youtubers and book writers will have you believing that anyone can do it, it's easy money and that we should all be small farmers- they are selling you a fantasy. It is difficult, dirty, and sometimes heartbreaking work for very little money.
your comment should be pin!
Yea it gets old seeing guys like this pretending they are making money on a "farm" and crunching the numbers on 20 chickens and showing 0 expensive or anything. Just so they can sell there ideologies to people with small farms instead of actually showing you any useful farming tips it's all just click bait videos of how anyone can be a full time farmer with little to no effort or knowledge. And if you use there "sustainable" agricultural practices that people will pay double or more than what your produce is worth. I live in east TN and have never even seen organic eggs at the farmers market for $7 a dozen most of the time around $3 to $6 depends if they are sized and or certified organic
Farming isn't for weak people, it's for the hardest working people. Not many of them in the last 3 generations unfortunately, just coddled adult children. I sold eggs in San Diego for 7-8 a dozen easily. I made a living market gardening as well. Was it easy? No! Stop complaining and get to work or go work in an office!
@@NaturesAlwaysRight I run a 650 acre regenerative farm in East Texas- we run cattle, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks, laying hens, broilers, hogs, and a market garden that could fit 10 or 15 of your little backyard operations into. I don't require a lecture about hard work from you. If you want to have an adult conversation about the economic framework that is stacked against small producers at every level, great. Outside of that, you are here selling people bullshit and lies so that you get some youtube clicks. You sound like some kind of low level Joel Salatin lol.
5iveArrow: And then, we have the Amish. What’s their secret to the insane productivity of their modest farms? Not long ago a contingent of Amish moved from Mexico to Belize and soon dominated vegetable and chicken production. One key is their simple lifestyle frees them from wasting money.
I typically pay $6 a dozen and believe that’s fair. Hopefully we’ll be getting our chickens going soon.
4.50 a dozen here, never over 5.
I've never seen fresh farm eggs for more than $3 a dozen
In Georgia they are $5+
I sell mine for $7/dozen in Hawaii and that’s on the cheaper end here. I’ve seen them up to $11/dozen here 😱
Here in Nova Scotia they’re selling for $7 plus.
Thanks for making this video! I'd like to know what other people are doing to make money with their livestock. I'd like to sell home-grown eggs but can't make the numbers work. Even with $7/dozen. For the week where you might get 48 dozen eggs, that is $336/week. If you value your time and spend 30 minutes/day taking care of the chickens, that would include gathering eggs, feeding, watering, and other maintenance, that is 3.5 hours/week at a cost of $15/hour (what do you value farm help time at?), you are left with $283.50. To buy organic, soy-free feed for 100 chickens, at 1/3lb / bird / day, that's 233lbs/week - that would eat the rest of the income (and more) and leave no profit. We raise chickens to get high quality eggs but I'd rather feed extras to the hogs and dogs, or compost them than sell them for what people are willing to pay as the investment return would be greater.
The root of the price disparity issue is that corn is subsidized by tax dollars. The organic, soy-free grain is not. That means we are all paying for those cheap eggs you buy from the store and from your competitor down the road via tax dollars. If we could eliminate the subsidies, we could then allow price discovery to occur and chicken and egg prices would increase significantly and it wouldn't sound so absurd to pay real dollars for real food.
Grow and process your own feed. There will be things you may still need to buy at times but most of the fees will be able to be grown. Saves a lot of money. Money saved is money earned
That's why Joel combines egg laying with cow pasture conditioning. He makes a little money on eggs, but quite a bit on the beef. The eggs pay for the chickens, basically.
If you can use them for fertility and pest control you're WAY ahead.
Fresh dozen here $3, upstate ny
10304
That’s some great deal!
2.50 at the local coop
Interesting topic Steven. Judging by the comments I guess it depends on where you live. Here in Nova Scotia government has now restricted every small farmer to 100 meat birds, per property per year 😳. Then there’s the price of feed here (not to mention organic). It’s rough. We supplement with food scraps and grain…
Never be discouraged by critical commenters Steven. The Lord is on your side and using you in mighty ways. You may never know the impact you’re having in this world. Absolutely inspiring!!! We’re going back to Eden!
To all these people complaining that you can't get X amount for a dozen, if you actually watched the video we said $5-7 is the range of prices customers are willing to pay in the area and that's based on what I know farms are making in the area. You guys are bragging about not being able to make more money then enviously saying how dare you try and make more, get outta here with that c0mmie nonsense. Do you even know how much nutrition is in a single egg when raised properly? How much you pay for that poison Starbucks you are slurpin on or the soda/beer you drink every week! People all around the USA pay easily $7 a dozen for truly organic soy free and pastured eggs (and it's worth it!), even stores sell their most premium eggs for $7 a dozen, doesn't a small farmer you can trust deserve at least that much? Just because YOU can't get those prices doesn't mean others can't and aren't, is your product even as good? It's about context, where you live, how much/what quality do you pay for feed, and how much pasture/woods you have available. etc. This is just a very simple short video example of a larger conversation you didn't see, YOU figure out your costs, only you can determine those numbers and figure out your profit margin.
Hah, I've went on that exact rant. Maybe something constructive could be gathering advice from different farms on how they reached the right customers, or how those customers were able to reach them. I have a few great customers, and honestly only keep doing it for them. They encouraged me from the start, and have requested different products. Kind of a Salatin line, but customer quality should also be assessed!
Lot of larping whiners who don't know how to upsell their products. It's so cringy reading their comments. lol. Thanks for the great content!
I see you're using Joel's design for the coop! Nice work.
Who pays $7/dozen?
Who would pay $7 for a dozon eggs?
Nobody in my area.
Good information. We can't raise chickens in our current situation. I'd much rather support local farmers and it's much better life for the animals. Plus benefits the land when done right imo. Good eggs cost $8 per dozen (Canadian) on the west coast.
Thanks for sharing :)
Great content.
You all are lucky. Where I live they sell farm eggs fir $2 a dozen. I have 80 birds and it's hardly worth it.
My chickens are laying fantastically the only thing is I've given to neighbors friends family and the dogs and pigs and yet I'm still throwing eggs down the drain apparently there is no farmers market nearby tried churches that was a no-go I also tried to find places that give food out to those who are in need again no luck at my old place I could sell eggs all day long and I always gave to the senior pantry. Never would I think I would have too many eggs so I would say to others if you're moving into a new area you really need to check out where you can sell or get rid of your product
Don't waste the eggs. Feed the eggs back to your chickens. Either raw mixed into feed or just cracked into a feeder bowl or cook them and they will devour them and save you money on feed.
Where do you live that eggs are almost double the price of farm fresh eggs. 😳
Tennessee will pay $4-$5 a dozen
$7 a dz for chicken eggs is a complete joke. If you're selling chicken eggs for $7dz then you're selling them to rich customers who think they're making a charitable contribution to a nonprofit.
A truly organic operation should not be adding restaurant scraps or coffee grounds to the compost pile. Those things were not grown by organic methods and will contribute pesticide residues. All-organic restaurants and coffee shops are rather rare. To produce a real organic product, all inputs must also be organically produced.
To add on this, it's illegal to sell food from animals fed by scraps from human consumption.
how many products do you produce? acres farmed?
LOL $7 a dozen.
That's funny right there, folks.
17501 in feed cost
🤣 I was thinking the same thing 🤔
Feeding the people doing the most harm is horrible; you're literally perpetuating the worst humanity has ever shaped into being! It's criminal!
Texas panhandle $3.50 a dozen
Wow...$7 a dozen..... Thats more the Whole Food in San Diego.... Do you have a large wealth cliental that don't have access to stores or markets.....?
7 dollars as if
commodifying animals is wrong. shame on you for promoting this. just grow and eat plants. animals aren't "ours" to use.
@Craig E I believe 'fuck off' are the words you are looking for
@@Ghhyuttgg 😆
Your philosophy isn't the same as mine, but I recognize it as a legitimate take on things. You're probably getting the pushback from the "shame on you" part of your comment. Most people will respect your life choices if you respect theirs. It doesn't mean we'll all agree, but we'll get along with each other.
Tim, I am assuming from your comment that you live 100% self sufficiently for your food. Otherwise, you would be commodifying the plants and/or animals that you buy from the store. Shame on you! Respect begets respect.
He provides them a good home and food for life, sounds like a good deal to me! Begone
Ive never paid 7.00 for a dozen of eggs and never will ! 😮