So in early 2011 my housemates and I got chickens. We got them as little chicks, raised them, made them a coop, continue to feed them, and in return we get eggs. See the post on my other blog (that i don't use often) Edible Dirt: http://www.edibledirt.com/wordpress/ You'll find some fun pictures and some of the decisions we made when our chickens where just chicks.
Top 3 questions I get about the chickens are:
(1) Do the eggs taste different?
(2) How much does it cost to get started?
(3) How much does each egg cost you?
Questions one: YES, the taste way better. They are richer and full of flavor. Our chickens get super fancy local feed and they get to run around in the yard eating bugs so the eggs are full of good stuff. Nothing like the store bought.
Question two and three: The following graph is my attempt to answer questions number two and three. And for fun I've also posted screenshots of the excel spreadsheet I used to calculate the information non the graph.
Some of the biggest assumptions to note are:
- Depreciation and Cost of Money are not factored in my analysis
- Buying new chickens to augment the flock as the current hens age, while a real possibility, is not factored in this analysis
- My value of the eggs is based on the most expensive eggs I can buy at the CoOp ($7 dozen)
- Labor cost are not factored in the graph (although they are addressed as an alternative break even in the excel spreadsheet)
(if anyone is interested in seeing the excel spreadsheet pdf just let me know and I'll be happy to email it to you. Below are screen shots of the calculations if you zoom in you should be able to see the numbers, sorry they are not the easiest to read)
Dom, this is awesome. So clever. That's great that now you have a snappy answer for when people ask you about the value of the eggs! Break out the spreadsheet - that'll learn 'em. As in most of these economic situations, there is, of course, no easy way to account for the lovely smugness one feels in eating eggs out of the backyard. RIP, Dorcas, Winnie, and Eleanor. I hope you're happy up there in the big free-range chicken coop in the sky. Sniff.
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Very cool! We've just been talking about getting chickens at home. I know who to go to. This is an interesting analysis. How to present this quantitative info on a blog is a challenge. Your graph is great, and I might suggest detailing more of your assumptions before diving right into the screen shots. Happy to make more suggestions if you're interested, and I'm going to make sure Teri looks through this before she talks about Break even analysis in week 3!
ReplyDeleteThanks Dorothy! and Bert, I'm definitely interested in your feedback about detailing assumptions and presenting this information a little more clearly. I'd love to revise and repost this to my personal and work blog. Maybe we can check in briefly this weekend?
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to put this together. I love it. I've learned something and I'm excited about your eggs. What do you think are some of the other things you could account for? And if you bought new chickens to replace the old ones, but the coop is already built and still in good standing, do your eggs get cheaper and your break even happen sooner?
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ReplyDeleteCost per egg would definitely go down if we went from 5 chickens to 8 (the city limit and what are coop is capable of housing). I haven't done the numbers but I don't think the break even would be sooner only because the new chickens, even if we got them one year after the first round of chickens, wouldn't start laying until we would have already broken even. And do that point we may be better served given we are limited to 8 chickens waiting a few year when the production of our current chickens is reduced and we can actually eat all the eggs laid. Maybe my next blog will be a analysis of when it makes the most sense to get the new chickens. (we has a house will probably not be retiring the chickens to the crock pot but instead letting them stick around until year 5 and then maybe finding a place for them outside the city).
Dom,
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome! I’ve been a sucker for those $7 pasture raised eggs at the co-op. I’ve been contemplating building a chicken coop and raising chickens for eggs for a couple of years. But, I always assumed that it actually penciled out better to pay way too much for healthy store-bought eggs, when you figure the cost of the coop, the feed, etc. I’ll definitely have to revisit that decision! Thank you for enlightening me!
Cameron