Path to Profitability?

I have been carefully analyzing our chicken expenses. And things don't look too good. Our current calculation shows a cost of $2.04/dozen (including the carton) if we amortize the cost of raising the chicks to laying age over a 20 month production lifetime.

Many of the local flocks are selling eggs for $2.00/dozen. Of course, some of them don't have very good eggs. To quote my lovely farm wife Catherine, "They have icky whites." At least she has not become an egg snob...

Based on my decades of experience in business I am thinking we need to reduce expenses and/or increase our sales price. Smart, huh?

We stopped by Clark's Grain Store and I chatted with The Guy about volume discounts, etc. It turns out that we want to stick with Blue Seal Layer feed, because it gives the best and most consistent nutrition. It turns out that volume discounts start at about three tons of loose (not bagged) feed. With our current flock, it would take us about two years to use that up. And I have no place to store it. For bagged feed, we can get about 10% discount if we buy at least one ton. That would take about 40 weeks to consume. I bought five bags and saved about 1%. Yay.

So we have raised the price for our eggs to $2.50/dozen. Our eggs are great quality (because we are feeding the good stuff), and they are distinctive because of the Araucana "rainbow" eggs. Time to do some marketing.