Fancy Graphs: Egg production update

It's been awhile since we last updated our egg production statistics.  I've been lazy about keeping track, so some of our recent numbers are approximate guesses.  Where I guessed, I erred on the low side

 

So either our egg production declined a bit or I just have a bad memory.  At any rate, we're averaging at least eight eggs a day, which means each chicken is laying 2 out of 3 days.

 

The Golden Comets are the winners out of all the breeds we have.  They're docile, good at foraging, seem to eat less of the layer feed, and consistently lay extra jumbo brown eggs.

 

The Silkies are also nice in that they mostly keep themselves, don't eat as much, are quick to roost when its time for bed and consistently lay three large pink eggs.  They were honestly kind of boring at first, but I appreciate it now that the novelty of having 4-5 squawking chickens run towards me every time I open the back door has worn off.

 

The worst of these are the Barred Rock, Brahma and Turken.  Barred Rock and Brahma are by far our fattest and most ravenous chickens, and I don't think I've ever seen the Barred Rock nesting.  While its nice to have an adoring entourage, constantly tripping over chickens gets old after awhile, and their affections quickly shift to whatever human is closest to the food bin.  These three also bite!  Particularly Turken.  Chicken bites don't hurt an adult, but I wouldn't recommend them for someone with children.

 

Auracana, gives us 4-5 eggs a week.  She's probably the funniest of our birds, but also frustratingly dumb (even for a chicken).  She and the Rhode Island are the best fliers and were using the chicken tractor (which we were storing in the shed/coop) to get up to the shed rafters for awhile.  Since the chicken tractor is outside now,  there's no longer an intermediate perch in the coop for them to get up to the rafters.  Don't tell that to Auracana, though.  She's on a mad quest to get back to the rafters by any means possible- which includes repeatedly launching herself off anything higher than 2ft.  She even managed to land on my head one night and sink her talons into my hair while J laughed.

 

Ah well.  And here is our cost summary:

 

We count our costs as we buy things, so we typically have 2-3 unopened or barely used bags of feed and supplements around, which is why our costs are so slow to decline.  We're running at slightly less than $7/dozen eggs if you don't count what we've spent on non-consumables (mostly chicken tractor materials).  We're selling our excess eggs at a $2 loss at the moment, and it will be another month before we break even (accounting for future purchases).

Which reminds me of the story of the farmer who decided to purchase radios for $2 and then sell them for $1.  When asked why he would do such a thing, he replied "Well, it sure beats farming!".

We might drop our price once our total costs go below $5/dozen.  Other local non-organic eggs are selling in the $3-$4 range.  The only more expensive eggs  around here that I've seen were $5.50 for "Nature's Yoke kosher large brown eggs" at the food coop (there was no kashrut symbol, just the word).

From "Is it Kosher?":
To be kosher, eggs must come from kosher fowl and be free of bloodspots in the white (albumin) and the yolk. Each egg must be checked individually after it is opened. If there is blood in an egg, it is forbidden...If an egg containing an embryo is cooked together with other eggs, none of the eggs are kosher.

I'm unclear as to how you can be positive that a brown egg doesn't have blood spots before cracking it, since the dark color of the egg makes them difficult to candle...so how are these eggs different from all other unfertilized chicken eggs?  A special machine? Extra careful candling?

I was curious and searched on the Nature'sYoke website and could only find that their eggs are primarily Amish and Mennonite sourced, and while they specifically advertise fertilized eggs, there was nothing about kosher or unfertilized eggs.  From searching on kosher certification sites, it seems that certified kosher eggs are really just a guarantee that the eggs actually came from poultry (and not a turtle or other type of bird) and individual eggs still need to be inspected after cracking.

So what makes the kosher eggs worth $2 more than the local free run brown eggs sitting next to them?

Meanwhile, at the other grocery store:  $3.29 for 2.5 dozen.