The Cost of An Egg

I see by the sudden amorous attraction the roosters have for the pullets that this spring's chicks will soon begin laying. (Huzzah!) This means that we will soon have eggs for sale and I will have to settle upon a price.

Tuesday saw me waiting with other local farmers for our monthly shipments via Dan's Countryside Delivery out of Waynesboro, VA. Dan brings us certified organic feed and supplements from Countryside Organics for our poultry, horses, cows, and goats. We got to talking about what us newbies are doing and, in particular, the prohibitive cost of producing organic poultry.

One farmer of 30+ years has 300 chickens and stated that he could not feed organic because the retail price of a dozen eggs would amount to $6.00 ...or 50 cents an egg.

This is not an excessive price when one considers that feed is nearly double the non-organic price, that pastured poultry have higher labor costs, and that processing is not automated like it is in large commercial operations. Furthermore, stocking rates (the number of birds per unit of area) are much lower, typically about 300 chickens per acre (43,560 square feet) vs the same number in about 960 square feet for cage-free organic and 70 square feet in the "standard" houses that give us dollar-a-dozen (or less) eggs.

But let us be honest.... six bucks a dozen is steep for most pockets even if it is a fair price for the producer. Let us also consider that my chickens were initially brought to the farm for non-egg purposes, that is, as tick control.

Now, we have 10 cats who need tick control every 3 weeks. None of the OTC products are effective in this area so we use a prescription variety which costs about $14 a dose on sale. If the five cats who stick close to the house are able to be treated every 4 weeks (because the larger number of hens control a larger area) that is a savings of $280 a year. That's $23.33 a month, nearly as much as one bag of feed.

I use flaked pine shavings for bedding. This costs about $5 for six cubic feet. I use the old litter, after some months of further composting, on the garden to loosen the soil and feed the plants. Composted Forest Mulch (aka mill waste) cost me nearly $4 for two cubic feet in Santa Fe. So, I save $7 per bale versus buying a less useful bagged product. A smallish bag of high-karma organic fertilizer is surely worth something but I get the nitrogen from droppings, feathers, and spilled feed.... that's surely worth about another bag of feed a month ... maybe more.

Sooo.... let us see.... I've gotten feed costs to a theoretical $54 per month value with my tick and garden offsets. Purina's standard laying ration costs about $15 a bag which equals about $60 a month. Neat-o, eh?

My housing costs are low and I have little associated labor because the coop is a permanent fixture. It never gets moved. I figure it costs about $10 a month over it's expected lifetime. Winter lighting with a re-purposed LED strip light on a timer costs me fifteen cents a winter. (Last winter I babied the chickens with a heat lamp but No More! THAT was super expensive.) I'm guessing my labor is about 15 hours in a four-week "month." Poverty in America says that a living wage for one person in my area is $7.41 / hr equalling $111. (That's nearly the typical farm intern's monthly stipend, folks!) New cartons cost upwards of 38 cents each, including shipping.

.....Actual -v-Offset Costs
Feed $106.28 -v- $53.14
Housing $10
Labor $111
Cartons $7.60
Chick costs / 24 months of good laying $12.50
Raising /24 months of good laying $9.37 / $7.15
----------------
$256.75 -v- $201.39

The pullets are expected to lay about 80 dozen saleable eggs a month, allowing for losses. This works out to the following costs per dozen, not including business costs (market fees, transportation, storage...)

FARM FRESH ORGANIC EGGS!
$3.21 -v- $2.52 per dozen out of the hen.

If I sell them from home at $4.50 a dozen I should make a small real profit without undercutting other farmers and with enough margin to allow a few of my poorer neighbors to buy eggs at a reduced price.



Fancy decorated Easter eggs and, perhaps, cute chicks in the spring will definitely have to supplement this egg gig.

"Sustainable" One Horsepower Motor

These folks are from near London, KY and they've brought back the horse treadmill for powering everything from refrigerators to wood splitters. The horses were in the most incredible shape I've ever seen. Turns out their main clients are veterinary schools and racing stables. The work ratios are, apparently, ideal for even development and rehabilitation.

I'd give you a link but, well, ehm... yeah. Menonite, I think.

"Chester? I'm bored."

'Show' horses. Southern Draft Animal Days Ferrum, VA

Mooove over, I want to take a nap!

Ox.
Ferrum College, VA

At Last.... She Posts Pictures!

So, last weekend I took a little walk to view the beautiful bales of hay out on the knob. It was a perfect day... a little hot with big clouds filling the sky and just enough humidity to give the vistas some atmosphere.
I took with me my "new" camera which is actually Mr. Fuzzy's old, old Minolta digital. So old, in fact, it takes AA batteries! Soooooo...... I took a bunch of pictures and lost my computing spine when I got back into the house. Surely there would be major issues connecting a Windows 98 era camera to a 64-bit Vista machine. My courage failed and I put off trying until Himself was home and refreshed enough to help me fix the inevitable software implosion. Yesterday was that day....
And the camera talked to the new computer just fine and dandy. I'm sorry I made you wait.

The gardens proceed apace

Most treasured and erudite of all blogosphere readers,

Mr. Fuzzy must apologize for his absence in the internet ether... duty forced him away from the farm and to western Kentucky for eight days of intense heat (the coolest high temperature was 92F). He returned Sunday to find the farm soaking in the pleasant 76F temperature. Mr & Mrs Fuzzy took a sunset walk Tuesday evening as the sun sat and after a week in the 90s, Mr. Fuzzy was actually chilled by the low-humidity 70F air.

It has come to Mr. Fuzzy's attention that there has been some wildly misguided speculation regarding his nom de plume. Let me assure my most valued readers, yes you, one and all, that it derives from his photographic pursuits in soft focus lenses, rendering "fuzzy pictures" if you will. Hence, "Mr. Fuzzy." It does not relate to his facial hair, non-linear reasoning or any of the other somewhat scurrilous speculations that apparently abound.

During the week away, some things changed dramatically on the farm. The five kittens have changed significantly and have metamorphosed from kittens into miniature cats. Their speed and agility increased by a magnitude and their not-so-wee paws now echo throughout the house as they stampede about, doing what ten week old cats do... their colors have become more intense in some cases, with patterns becoming more evident. Buster is no longer the largest of the litter, Mr. Tweedle having surpassed him in both weight and height. Little Bluebeard, the runt of the litter, will always retain her title of 'tiny' it seems - she was developmentally in the lead of the litter for the first fortnight and is still perhaps the boldest of them all, despite her diminutive presence. Fear not, good reader, a photographic exploration will be produced soon to illuminate their new physical edifices.

Mrs. Fuzzy's raised bed garden has prospered in the last week of sun and warmth (at last, no rain for a week - I may regret saying that later in the summer). Her zucchini plants are HUGE and are yielding fresh fruits by the day. Does anyone know of a recipe book dealing exclusively with zucchinis? The cucumber plants are producing little "pickles-to-be" with wild abandon. We will have to corner the market on vinegar soon... All of the apple trees are dense with fruits, albeit some seem small (they will get a well-deserved feeding in the autumn).

About six weeks ago, we engaged Boothe Creek Excavating from nearby Check to remove several hundred hawthorn trees from two areas on the back of the farm. These thorn covered small trees were taking over what had been pastures at one time and threatened to continue spreading. Their long (2-3 inch) thorns were enough to deter even deer from attempting to pass through these dense stands. Tim & Virgil arrived with a bulldozer and an articulated arm with a bucket and 'thumb.'

With the latter, Virgil could grasp a hawthorn tree and gently pull it from the earth, roots and all (otherwise, they will re-colonize). This method minimally disturbs the top soil and left the little patches of grass intact. The bulldozer was used primarily to dig the 'burn pit' where the trees were reduced to ash, the pit then covered and leveled. This method left a clean, level and almost smooth surface, with large patches of grass throughout. We will seed the more level patch in grasses to extend the pasture; the more steeply sloped area are intended to be seeded in more chinkapins and paw-paws from other parts of the farm. For those who might be concerned that the ecology of the farm was adversely impacted by the hawthorn removal, there remain perhaps another 100 trees further down on the farm. Overall, we believe that the farm's ecology is improved by reducing the hawthorn invaders and increasing the rare trees and bushes of the BlueRidge region.

The burn pit is shown in progress - and Jack exploring the new ground just a few days ago. As you can see, nature has a habit of repopulating seemingly barren areas pretty quickly around here! Tim & Virgil opened up perhaps four acres or more and there was a marvelous unanticipated benefit - a new lovely vista appeared to the south.

Mr. Fuzzy is thrilled to be home again, with Mrs. Fuzzy, Jack, the whole cat crew, the raccoons who raid our trash cans, the buzzards who oft rest along the front of the farm, fireflys, chirping crickets, and all of the new fawns. There is no other place like Stratheden Farm for him.

Stay tuned for a MAJOR news announcement about the farm in a week or so. It might be so momentous as to push Michael Jackson's untimely death from your saddened minds, dearest readers.

Bah!

Humbug! Mama just set me up with my own Blogger account so that readers wouldn't be confused thinking that SHE writes these posts. Ha! I AM A SMART CAT. But I am kinda ticked off to see that the last post featured a picture of the mini girl cat. Evil things!

Mama says I'm supposed to be writing on the things I've been overseeing here on the farm OKAAAAY MAHM! (Mom's still stuck cleaning that room of hers.)

So outside, in my domain, has been all in an uproar. Mama kept us inside part of the day for Two Whole Days (meanie!) because this guy called Mr. Simpson The Cattle Farmer Next Door came over with a noisy tractor and stuff stuck on behind it. Each day the stuff changed and now the scary tall grass is all gone. I've seen Daddy "mow" but this guy was waaaaayyyyyy faster and I *think* the big blocks of grass smelling things are where he put it. I didn't get to see how but a quick Googling leads me to believe he used something called a "round bailer" to make them.

They're sort of pretty and we can climb up on them but it's all in the hot sun so not fun most of the day.

OK... job done. Now I can tell you what else I saw today. I saw Mama let the short haired orange baby out into the patio today. I don't think Mama saw me watching from the day lily patch but I saw this With My Own Eyes! They were only out for twenty minutes or so but STILL!

Spring IS here - really this time!

Yes, there's more going on at Stratheden than the felines. Mr. Fuzzy has been busy seeding fescue, rye and red clover to improve the pasture... and working on erosion control upon embankments along the driveway. Mrs. Fuzzy is spending hours every day in the little greenhouse with her seedlings. Together they are building cedar 3 x 8 foot raised beds for the main garden.

Here at the farm, we're on a high spot; the spine of the Blue Ridge mountains is less than six miles away. This cooler, higher air has delayed the emergence of plant life when compared to either town or the Shenandoah Valley. At the farm's elevation, plants are running two to four weeks behind the Valley. However, Spring is here at last, no teasing this time... although the native trees are being very coy about showing their blooms and leaves. The pastures have greened wonderfully over the last three weeks.

Our peach tree has finally blown into bloom (see below); maybe we'll have lots of peaches with some luck. The apple trees are not far behind and are leafing out. The tulips began blooming last Sunday, which was a really beautiful warm and sunny day. Today has been sunny and still, hovering around 60F, tomorrow may be ten degrees warmer (21C).