How Much Does That Egg Cost???
A busy hen or a lazy owner?
Lately I’ve been exploring the costs associated with my various hobbies. I thought some of you might be interested to see what the average cost per egg is for our backyard chickens.
First off, the costs detailed in my quick analysis are specific to my flock and many are based on estimates. Everybody will have different expenses and will either do things a bit more simply or a bit fancier. One of the biggest expenses for my flock of backyard chickens is their housing. I built the coop from a plan that I sketched out after looking at several different examples online. My coop cost $230 in supplies and took about a week’s worth of spare time to complete. My coop was originally designed as a ‘chicken tractor’ meaning it could be moved around the yard to different positions.
The feeders and water containers for the birds have changed over the years. I have gone through a pair of standard feeders ($10 each x 2 = $20), a watering device that didn’t work for me ($15) and the current setup I use of a hanging feeder ($20) and hanging water bucket that I made ($10). My favorite chicken device was a birthday gift so I won’t count it toward my cost average. I have an automatic coop door opener / closer. It is the best! My opener is a VSB Automatic Door Opener. My unit cost $80 but I see they have now doubled in price…yikes! For calculation the housing and feeding total will be $295.
The coop on the driveway when I was nearly done building it.
Over the years we have had a total of nine chickens. We started with 4 chicks that cost $5 each ($20), one of those chicks turned out to be a rooster so I returned him to the breeder and wound up coming home with 2 pullets (additional $8 for the one I bought in addition to the one I traded). Of that original batch of five we lost our two buff opringtons during an extremely hot summer. The next spring I bought 2 more chicks at $6 each ($12 total). Our next loss was when the dogs from down the street broke into our coop and killed 4 of the 5 girls. We then bought Zsa Zsa a month later for $20. This spring we have had 4 chicks. We only paid for 3 chicks since one was a replacement for a chick that died. Of those 4 we had 2 that survived after a tough bout with an unknown illness. Total cost for the 3 chicks was $18. In total our chickens have cost $78 to purchase.
Our 5 year old (3 in the photo) holding one of the girls.
I have to give my best estimate on feed cost. Every time we get chicks they use a special kind of feed for the first few months. It costs $18 a bag. I will estimate I have bought 3 bags of that feed over the years for a total of $54. A regular bag of feed costs $14. When our flock size is 4-5 we go through about a bag a month. When the flock is smaller like it is now the 50lb bag lasts about 2 months. I will guess we have gone through about 18 bags of feed over the years at a cost of $252 since 2010. Best guess at feed cost since 2010 is $306.
Even the chickens have a utility bill. Their water consumption is minimal so I won’t worry about that. Electricity is a different story. When they are young they are under a heat lamp for the first 3-4 weeks of their life. My best guess at the energy consumption for the bulb over the course of a month is $10…much lower than I thought it would be. Over the 3 times we have had chicks that would be a total of $30. I will factor in another $30 for the fan that I have run at times on their coop when we are having a string of 105+ days. Total electricity is approximately $60 since 2010.
Using the Eggbot to label eggs 🙂
I have some miscellaneous expenses that need to get factored in as well. They are both the result of the people down the street who let their dogs out. There was an $80 vet bill for getting our lone survivor checked out and a $400 fence structure that had to be purchased. Total of $480 out of my pocket due to other people’s negligence…that’s life.
The biggest trick is trying to estimate the number of eggs we have been getting. We had a full producing flock from July 2010 to July 2011. I will say we were getting an average of 18 eggs a week for those 52 weeks for a total of 936 eggs. That sounds about right because we were giving away and selling eggs right and left. In July or August of 2011 we lost 2 of the chickens due to heat and egg production was way off due to the stress. We averaged 1 egg a day from the remaining 3 for a while and I didn’t light the coop over the winter to generate artificial laying. August 2011 to June 2012 we took in an estimated 350 eggs. Egg production fired back up as our new chicks matured and we were back at 3 eggs a day for a few months – a total of 180.
At the end of August 2012 is when the dog attack happened and our flock was wiped out. Our one survivor didn’t lay again for months. We actually had to buy eggs at the store…it was a strange feeling. We started getting eggs again in January and have been averaging an egg a day for a total of 70 eggs to date. So in total I estimate we have taken in approximately 1,500 eggs since 2010. Of those eggs I would guess we have sold about 20 dozen at $2 a dozen.
Still reading? Let’s do some math….
$295 – Housing and feeding equipment
$78 – Purchase price of birds
$306 – Estimated feed expense
$60 – Estimated electricity
$480 – Miscellaneous expense
$1,219 – Total investment in chickens since 2010
That means that each egg costs 81 cents based on my estimate of 1,500 eggs produced since 2010. In all fairness, if I removed the $480 of expenses incurred from the attack the average price per egg drops to 49 cents an egg. And of course the expense of the coop is distributed over a larger amount of time the longer we keep a flock of chickens. For comparison, a dozen organic eggs at Kroger cost $2.50.
Can you put a price tag on memories with the family?
What I find even more interesting is removing the overhead expenses (housing, purchase price, misc. expenses) and just taking the consumables ($306 feed + $60 electricity) and dividing that by the total egg production. The average cost per egg based on consumable only is 25 cents per egg (24.4 cents to be precise). That means that every dozen eggs we produce costs $2.93 in consumables. When we let our 5 year-old sell our extra eggs at $2 a dozen we are actually losing $1 per dozen based on consumables alone. Actually we are taking a big loss since we let her keep the money for her piggy bank 🙂
What’s the point? I was just curious how much it was costing to produce our delicious eggs. Like most backyard hobbies, there really is no price savings. Growing your own food in a garden rarely saves much money if any. There is pride in the fruits of your labor and comfort in the knowledge of how that food was produced. The same is true of backyard chickens. They are fun pets that can put dinner on the table.
While I was reading along, I was beginning to wonder if you had kept track of how many eggs they’ve laid! If you’re like me, you just remember the stretches of time where almost all of them were laying every day.
But one thing that you cannot put a price on is the effect on your girls. Besides learning responsibility in caring for God’s creatures, they learn not to be afraid of them and to handle them gently. I have fond memories of little boy Benjamin sprinkling chicken scratch around the yard, all the while talking to the chickens as they followed him around. Priceless!
Glad I’m not the only one who can remember good runs of production and bad. Both of our girls talk and sing to the chickens too. I was just standing at the door the other day watching our oldest with the chickens. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but as animated as she was it must have been a funny story. She then began singing to them. Great memories!
You would reduce your cost per egg even more if you factored OUT the dog attack disruption to laying production. Before it they were, as I recall laying 3 a day. Add in those potential eggs in your numbers and I wouldn’t be surprised if your cost per egg is almost down to Kroger’s price.
Wow! Thanks for the gourmet eggs! I didn’t know you also sold them, I will start doing my egg shopping next door!
Give us a few months Lisa. Right now we’re just barely popping out an egg a day over here. Once the two chicks grow up we’ll be back to ‘overflow’ status. 🙂
I enjoyed this post and had to laugh at the bill tally. We had chickens for a while, had no idea how much it cost to maintain our little operation, but the kids loved the responsibility. It made the cost worth it each morning when they would go grab an egg for breakfast.
Thanks Ashley! I know it was a bit silly to tabulate this all but that is the budget side of my brain at play. You’re absolutely right, the memories with the kids are priceless. Our circle of friends gets a real big kick out of the chickens too.
Interesting how the costs are not really worth the effort, but the hobby makes it fun. It is the same with my garden, nothing interesting grows there and after 3 months of effort I just have a few potatoes to show for, but I enjoy working on it.
I was also surprised that your feed and animal costs are very similar to Guatemala, where everything is usually much cheaper.
I thought that was interesting too Pauline! We definitely enjoy our chickens and with young children in the house I believe we are teaching valuable lessons about where food comes from and how truly precious it is. I’m with you on the garden too. We have lots of spinach and carrots, but everything else I planted this season has failed. I enjoy the challenge and the fresh taste of homegrown veggies.
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Just happened along your blog when I was looking for a picture of a full grown silkie for mine LOL, I just got 5 baby chicks and wanted to show what they will look like grown and you had the best picture so I used it crediting you (but I can remove it if you mind). I like your blog. I’m a member of backyardchickens.com and too many people don’t do the chicken math. We have chicks and have already spent $79 for them and their supplies. They were $5 each, then we had to buy a heat lamp and bulbs, feeder, waterer, and feed! Plus since they are chicks no eggs for 6+ months, and we still have to pay for some materials for their chicken tractor (although if you read my blog we will do it on the cheap for under $100).
In the middle of the summer when the hens were laying well we started calculating how much it actually cost us per egg for consumables as well. We had been charging $2.50 per dozen. It turned out that the feed and bedding for the coop cost us about $2.50 a dozen during their prime laying time. So we increased our price for fresh eggs to $3.00 a dozen and have had no problem selling them. We felt we needed to at least re-coup our investment in the consumables. At the local farmers market which they run all summer in our town they charge $4-$5 a dozen and sell out every week. So I don’t feel badly about charging $3.00 a dozen, when the taste and freshness of our eggs beats grocery store eggs every day. It is definitely a different product you are offering than what is bought from factory farms in the store.
Another thing we did was started buying our food in bulk from the local farmers co-op, instead of in bags from Tractor Supply Company. That has saved us some as well, but it means we have to have a place to store 250 pounds of feed at once. But we currently have 18 chickens so we go through it quicker than you would.
But I would agree with other comments that it is hard to put a price on fresh eggs, on the interaction with animals that your kids get, and their responsibility for taking care of a living creature. Many families have dogs who only eat and require vet bills, and do not lay eggs. At least with chickens, they give you something edible in return for the money and time you spend on them. We feed our chickens all of the kitchen scraps and garden waste, so we reduce the amount going to the landfill as well.