The August 2021 Chicken Update this month unfortunately has a sad start. We had to say farewell to sweet Amelia at the beginning of this month. She was a sweet blue orpington and was a big bird in her prime. She’d had health issues for nearly 2 years (malnutrition issues from a pendulous crop that we treated somewhat successfully at home) and earlier this summer she damaged her ankle somehow and despite moving her to a convalescent area the swelling never went down and she couldn’t walk much. We knew her time was coming to an end and were considering putting her down when she passed away peacefully in her sleep.
But despite inevitable loss on the homestead, there is also new life. The little chicks have grown up so much the last 2 months and we’re starting to figure out who’s a boy and who’s a girl. The little ladies will remain with our flock to hopefully lay us some mid-winter eggs. The extra boys will end up in the freezer when they start crowing on us. Roosters are now allowed in the zoning for the suburbs, so when they can’t keep quiet they’ll have to go. When we’ve had purebred boys in the past we’ve sold them to folk, but these barnyard mixes are more valuable to us as a high quality protein…so don’t get too attached to these cute faces.
August 2021 Chicken Update
Like I mentioned last month, we’ve decided to take a break from tracking and documenting all of our homestead finances during this season of life as building a house and homestead from scratch will take much more of our time and we’d really rather eat dinner real quick than carefully weigh and measure every homegrown food item. Never fear, we plan to resurrect it in the future!
That being said, we do plan to continue keeping track of our egg totals and chicken expenses because we are curious to see how the finances balance out for our laying flock come December and daily tracking of their eggs takes minimal time.
Farm fresh eggs around here go from $3-7 per dozen depending on raising practices. We’re fairly middle of the road, so we price ours right in the middle.
Egg Totals
- Brown Eggs: 68
- Green Eggs: 41
- Blue Eggs: 33
- Total Eggs: 142
- Total value: $59
($5/dozen)
Chicken Expenses
- Bedding: $10
- Feed: $27
- Total expenses: $37
- Net: $22