Canning and food preservation season is in full swing! Which means more food is going into jars than what we’re eating directly. The $$ savings from this month will benefit us come this winter when we’re craving tomato soup or a bit of salsa. Read on for the July 2021 chicken update on the homestead finances.
Yes, only part of the financial update. Because we have some exciting news we’ve been sitting on for a few weeks….We’re in the process of purchasing our homestead! 😀 Squee! We’re super excited, but with any major purchase there’s a mountain of paperwork and bureaucracy to jump through so our brain space can only handle so much record keeping.
So, 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.
We hope you enjoy hearing some of the monthly chicken antics and learn some of the financial side of keeping a laying flock of hens.
July 2021 Chicken Update
Well, after last month’s crawling on our bellies for eggs, a few of the ladies have decided that laying in the coop is a good idea after all. Well, we had to help give them that idea by putting a fake egg in the nesting box. Silly girls seem to need help finding the right place.
Whether it was their idea or ours, we’re super happy to not have to hunt so hard for eggs. Thankfully the egg supply has remained steady even after reintroducing Elsie and her 7 baby chicks back into the flock. Her little fluff balls have grown their first round of big girl and boy feathers and were big enough to not tempt the local black snake, so we set them on the ground and let Elsie teach the flock that these babies were not to be messed with.
The sweet spot is having enough to eat and a few dozen to sell. Financially, with having 7 growing chicks and a flock of 12 ladies, our feed and bedding expenses were up a bit until we were able to consolidate the flock.
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: 47
- Green Eggs: 30
- Blue Eggs: 50
Total Eggs: 127
Total value: $52.91
($5/dozen)
Chicken Expenses
- Bedding: $10
- Feed: $27
Total expenses: $37
Net: $15.91
