Price of Eggs - Page 2

Originally Posted by ChildhoodDream

I knew a old man that had a few laying hens and he had one that he fed a little onion to and she laid onion flavored eggs for his breakfast eggs.

I know of a kid who thought he would help his Mother out by making the chickens lay boiled eggs.

By boiling the chicken...



It didn't work.

On the farm here we haven't had chickens for 30 years but now have about 70 layers (young and old). It's more of a hobby than a business venture and they run free range also. We lock them up at night and so far (fingers crossed) haven't had varmints get in the coop. Feathers in the back yard reveal that Mr. Coyote made a visit or two. He got a wild turkey out there too. $2.00 a dozen is the going price around here. It's fun to see how people enjoy the farm raised eggs vs. storebought. It's not hard to sell a few dozen eggs in a few minutes by getting on Facebook. We deliver when it's appropriate for us. DakotaRog mentioned how SD towns cater to egg producers. We have friends in Mitchell, SD who are allowed 12 hens in the city limits too. I suppose the roosters would be a noise nusiance in town, but we sure enjoy them out here on the farm.

YM- Have you mink proofed your birds main sleeping area?? Those suckers will get in a kill bunches of birds just for "fun" or whatever their malfunction is. The bro learned the hard way although he got lucky because he was actually around that morning and only lost 8, could have lost all 30. The mink got another 3 or so individually before bro caught it in the act, missed killing it with a rake, and ended up pinning it inside a sheet rock wall. He armored up the chicken sleeping area with poultry netting and mink never got back inside. We thought the mink would die inside the sheet rock hollow but it gnawed its way out about 40 feet from where it got trapped inside. He played cat and mouse with the mink for about a couple of weeks, never losing another bird but still sign it was around. We finally created a tunnel that the mink had to come through from its hole and had a nice 110 connibear waiting for it. And that was the end (I have a pix later on that I'll post). I still have the mink skin in the freezer that I need to mount for bro so he can remember his "epic" critter battle...

Originally Posted by DakotaRog

Yeah, burt we can only hope but I doubt other states will follow Cali's lead. But if grocery store eggs stay high, I wonder what fairly cheap protein source will replace them for folks without a lot of cash? Eggs are an easy and quick thing to cook and industrial eggs have traditionally been fairly cheap. Americans overall eat more protein than most people in the world but poorer people eat less and more carbos because carbos are cheap. I see more empty calories eaten to make up for less eggs. Probably not a good deal.

I think the store bought eggs around here are around 2.50 $/dozen. If you figure six meals that's a pretty good deal. Used to eat cereals & grains for breakfast but after a couple of hours on the jobsite i was feeling hungry & run down.Somewhere along the line i started making a two egg " McMuffin" for breakfast and what a difference. My energy level stays up & i don't get hungry till noon time.

Mentioned it to a friend that's mostly vegan and she explained that it's the protein in the eggs that was doing it.

It's funny but three of my nearby neighbors have taken up raising chickens over the last five years. Haven't asked them about it but i wonder if part of the reason was a certain feeling of uncertainty about the future. If you've got chickens for protein & a garden that goes quite a way towards feeding the family.

Its nothing for us to go through 2 dozen eggs at breakfast with 8 kids

We see lots of double yoke eggs from young healthy birds that are just hitting their stride in laying eggs. They do it more if they are on a high protein diet.

Ever seen a chicken sweat? They do after laying a gigantic double yoker!!

Jon.

I like seeing all the weird shaped large sizes. People don't get to see thos variations in shape in grocery store eggs because the sellers want uniformity. I suspect the jumbo odd shape ones go to manufacturers make stuff out the eggs but the end customer doesn't see the whole egg. I love double yolkers!!

Here's a pix of bro after we caught the chicken killing mink. He has it in his hand, the brown doesn't stand out much in this picture. Just an ordinary sized female. Bro somehow figured that little stinker cost him north of a grand in lost production for the next half a year (I'm not sure how he got to that amount...?)

Buying the cage free eggs from my friend, was and is a better price than the grocery store prices. With these being a better tasting egg, having larger yoke and bigger eggs, we are eating more eggs. Didn't really save any money, store one dozen eggs per week, $4.60+. Buying two dozen eggs from my friend each week $6.00, only thing gained about 1 to 2 pounds in weight for each of us!

Man, I think fishers are cool. There just like a mink on turbo boosters fuel injection compared to a 2 bbl carburetor of a mink!!

They, and pne martin (but more fishers) are a trapping goal of mine before I die but none of the North Woods Midwestern states appear to be hospitable to a non-resident trapper from SD (MN doesn't allow non-res trappers unless they own land in MN, WI is very restrictive in fisher permits and a non-res stands almost no chance getting one, and MI doesn't like trappers from SD---as well as ND and a bunch of other states--probably started back in the 1950s when SD really tightened down non-res waterfowl hunting in the state because a lot of the better ne part of the state was being taken up in non-res leases, a litle tit-for-tat, at least that's my theory). NY actually looks like a doable state so who knows. That would have to be one of my post-retirement activities. After I catch a South Dakota bobcat out of the Badlands or the butte country of the northwest corner...

NHscrapper- ever taken a fisher??

I remembered this thread when I was at the store today. 5.99 was the cheapest dozen there.

Ryan - That's more like what I had read, I thought $5 a dozen was high, a friend of mine that lives near Tracy told me they were almost $6 there. It never rains in Southern California and we have cheaper eggs too!

I guess Im lucky being in a small town close to a amish community. We pay $1.75 for Jumbo eggs and have seen a fair share of double yokers. Havent ate a store bought egg in along time dont think I could handle the taste.

I started this thread for a few reasons: 1. I do all the grocery shopping for a family of three 2. Wanted to know the effect on egg prices due to new cage size law in Cal. 3. Effect of bird flu on egg price 4. Dept. of Labor reported a 84.5% increase in wholesale eggs for the month of June 2015

As the person in my house that does all the shopping for groceries and the only income for a family of three, grocery prices is just one of many prices I track. I did not believe, that this years new cage law was only partially to blame for price increases. Most news reports blame Avian Flu (bird flu) for the greatest increase. Price for me for eggs from June 2014 ($2.50) to June 2015 ($4.60), went up $2.10 in one year a 85% increase. The Department of Labor reported the wholesale price of eggs nationally for the month of June 2015 rose 84.5%. That is the largest wholesale price increase for a single month for the price of eggs since 1937 (since gov. started recording wholesale prices). Labor departments sites bird flu for cause of national wholesale price jump, does not even mention Cal. cage law. From my understanding, there is no reported cases of bird flu in Cal. The first reported cases in the nation were in December of 2014 and by the end of June 2015 twenty states with reported cases (almost half of the country). With over 50 million birds (chicken and turkeys) lost to the flu. This is the largest poultry epidemic in the nations history, will have a impact on economy, especially the farm communities of the Midwest. Iowa alone lost over 30 million birds, as the nations largest egg producer expected economic loss 1 billion dollars.

I find it interesting what my fellow SMF members have to say on this subject. I know you are practical people that deal with things as you need to in a practical way. As I made the switch from cage free chicken eggs, bought from other than a grocery store, some of you were or had already done the same. All of you seem to be buying eggs from the grocery store at a much lower prices than those sold in Cal. ($2.50 to $3.00 higher here or more). Yet both Ryan and I are buying cage free eggs from local farmer for $3 a dozen ($2.00 to $3.00 lower than store). DakotaRog reports that $3.00 is what his brother, who obviously raises what I would call a cage free egg (thanks Rog. for pictures).

Pretty much concluded what I already know. 1. We in Cal. pay more for almost everything (the price to live in the "Golden State). 2. When you take the "Marketing" out of the equation, buying strait from the farmer or source prices are about the same. 3. Prices that the rest of the you have reported don't seem to match the numbers Government and media is reporting (none of you indicated a 85 to 150% price increases in a year) 4. The Cal. cage law is about raising the price of eggs in Cal. because of greed and not humane treatment of chickens!

Prop. 2 the California "cage law" was passed in 2008 by 60% of the voters (that's a low margin). I did not vote for it, I saw it for what it was. Special interest, mostly from out of state, spending millions of dollars. A state with the largest population, that buys the most eggs. California has a large egg industry, two years ago over 19 million egg producing hens. California in 2013 produced 225 million dozens of eggs (that's a lot of eggs but not even close to what we consumed). There were 137,460,000 dozens of eggs imported from 18 other states (that's a lot of eggs and money). Here the Cal. egg producers took two methods to meet the cage law in effect Jan. 2015, a lot of them started in 2014. Almost none built new houses are bought larger cages and almost all of them reduced their flock size (less chicken & less eggs). Most simply cut the number of hens per cage, less removed the cages, raising "cage free eggs" with even greater reduced flock size. California now has about 13 million hens (about a 47% decrease in two years). The requirement for more space for egg producing hens is the same for importers, egg producers in Iowa that sell eggs in Cal, will need to give their hens more space too! (now I'm laughing). Here is where things really start to indicate this was not about humane treatment for egg producing chickens (How about those poor chickens being raised to eat, nobody cares about them? or all of the other farm animals?). The law with it's cage sizes really makes you wonder, whats really going on here? New law gives single hen with a cage of 322 sq. inches & a perch, 2 hens per cage 410 sq. inch for cage (205 sq. in. per hen), 3 hens per cage 498 sq. inch cage (166 sq. inches per hen), 4 hens 584 sq. inch cage (146 sq. inches per hen). There is a square inches of cage size specification for 1 to 8 hens, each time you add one more hen, the cage gets a little bit larger, but each hen gets less square inches (did you notice that? more hens you add to a cage require bigger cage, but resulting in less space per hen?). When you get to 9 or greater hens each hen only needs 116 square inches per hen. Where is the humanity in that? This law is only going to make it harder for the small producers. Before this law went into effect Cal, egg prices were $1.20 to $1.50 per dozen higher than national average. Now $2.50 to $3.50 higher. Who really benefited from this law? Anyone think California department of Agriculture inspectors are going to be checking cage sizes in Iowa or Ohio?

There's more in a egg than you think there is! Here are some of the supporters of the "Cage Law": The largest source of funding for Proposition 2 was The Humane Society of the United States and Farm Sanctuary. Not surprised that the largest non-California egg producing companies spent a lot of money to put California egg producers out of business. Cal-Maine Foods spent $591,211 funding Prop 2 they are the nations largest egg producer, Rose Acre Farms of Indiana $517,256 second largest egg producer, Midwest Poultry Services $260,000. The other major supporters: Sierra Club‐California, California Veterinary Medical Association, California Democratic Party, Green Party of California, Peace and Freedom Party, Center for Food Safety, Consumer Federation of America, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), United Farm Workers, Family Farm Defenders, Union of Concerned Scientists, California Council of Churches, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, California Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, California‐Pacific Conference, United Methodist Church, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, Compassion in World Farming, The César Chávez Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife, Greenpeace USA, the Organic Consumers Association, National Black Farmers Association, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Farm Forward, SPCAs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, the State Humane Association of California; the National Federation of Humane Societies, Best Friends Animal Society, Animals and Society Institute, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,Dr. Jane Goodall, Matthew Scully, Eric Schlosser. Ed Begley, Jr., Bill McKibben, Tobey Maguire, Ellen DeGeneres, Daryl Hannah, Alicia Silverstone,Ed Asner.

Yet both Ryan and I are buying cage free eggs from local farmer for $3 a dozen ($2.00 to $3.00 lower than store).

I suspect that the small producer is selling his eggs "off the books". There's plenty of opportunity to move the product at the road side or at farmers' markets, especially with your noted price differential. I see a lot of small operators doing this around here. As long as they don't get too greedy or are too blatant about it, they can avoid the tax police. The more the state squeezes, the more that slips through its fingers.

Egg factories may give the hens hormones to double egg production, but with half the nutrition per egg and weaker shells.

Just to finish the hijack of this thread to talk about fishers in the North Woods.

Yeah, NHscrapper, I would only eat the members of the mustelids (sp?) critters if I was really, really hungry. I'm sure a good source of protein but I can only imagine the taste given their general musk issues.

The big male fishers generally have fur that's lower in value than the smaller silkier females. But the taxidermy trade for a big fisher is another option if a guy has the proper licensing and I suppose does the paper work needed to sell them that way. I've seen skiined out for taxidermy big fishers go for $150 or more on ebay.

And I understand your stance that you want to appreciate the critter by only killing what you're going to eat. I respect that but my view is that wldlife is a renewable resource that if managed well is sustainable. I also know you've said, "let man take care of man and nature take care of nature". And I get that too but it all depends on what kind of "nature" you want or will tolerate. I know enough about most major ecosystems in the CONUS that we've altered them, some drasticlly, that certain critters such as generalists do very well and more niche animals don't or struggle. So without decent mangement some of the generalists can totally dominate most of the others. People have to step in, as they have for most of the time, NA altered/controlled many wildlife species before Euro-Americans showed up. To use Collin Powell's "Pottery Barn" analogy, if "you break it, you own it". But maybe that didn't work out so well either....