On Saturday morning, still laid up with a bum knee, I started working on the stats for the old layer flock. Generally I don’t do the layer stuff until after January 1, but this year, the whole flock was sold, so effectively the period ended.
One of the interesting stats was the 81% Rate of Lay in July. July, with the heat, is typically the lowest Rate of Lay, sometimes down to 22%. I was selling every egg of saleable condition that month. Once covid hit, I was selling eggs like mad.
This year has been one of extremes. In January I wasn’t selling many eggs and had 19 dozen eggs that were too old to sell. So I put them down in waterglass and would feed them out to the old cat each day. There are still about 2 dozen left in the root cellar.
Another factor that was new this year was dealing with a rat population. After over 35 years here, we had rats move in, even though we have 2 barn cats. They were a serious problem in the coop, and many eggs were too dirty to sell or had been eaten. My guesstimate, some of which is confirmed, was I lost well over 400 eggs or 35 dozen eggs to this problem. So saleable eggs were down to 83%.
The costs for the hens didn’t change much over the last year, except the feed cost was higher in July due to the rat problem.
By selling the layers for $15 a bird instead of turning them into ground chicken, which we didn’t need this year, we got our eggs for free, and had a small profit. So I moved onto the broiler flock stats.
Due to a bad memory, we ended up with 87 broilers this year, and only needed 5 by the time Freezer Camp came around on Labor Day weekend. As these were supposed to be all pullets, I decided to sell them for layers.
Due to poor sexing, we ended up with 8 roosters in the flock. There was only one way to get rid of them, so we gave them to our friend who has helped us each year with Freezer camp. He got about 34 lbs of chicken.
This left us with 80 pullets to sell. I had no problem having them all claimed well before the October 1 deadline. When all expenses including the cost of the chicks were added up, we only lost $5.33 on this flock for the year.
I had offered our friend a reduced price for his pullets, and my brother also. If I ever sell organic layers again, I think I will ask for $25 a bird instead of the $20 I asked this year. I wanted to make sure I would sell them all this year, so had kept the price down. But I hadn’t reckoned with covid and I could easily have sold them for more.
So this year was a win overall. By keeping close track of expenses I was able to turn a mess into a positive cash flow, not something that happens often with our birds. We make enough to cover the cost of eggs and to have some for our use, but haven’t ever had a gain.
Next year we will need a good many birds for a year’s worth of chicken, and I’m wondering if I should order extra, to sell. I had a long list of people wanting my birds, if people backed out. I have until December to figure it out. I should have a good idea of how the covid situation is playing out by then, and whether people will still want backyard birds.
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