A Mini Business Plan: Can Our Chook Ladies Pay Their Way?

Before having chooks we were buying on average a dozen free range eggs per week at an average cost of $10 per dozen or $40 a month.

Disadvantages of this (aside from the price tag) were that we weren't always assured that paying for "organic, free range eggs" meant we were actually eating organic free range eggs.

Note: The state of egg farming in Victoria is currently coming under some scrutiny due to some stretchy interpretations of labelling by some farms (I didn't just make this up. I read about it in Crikey - http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/09/15/free-range-egg-label-regulations/ and also over at our Aunty - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-14/free-range-debate-ruffling-feathers/5021530 ).

Short of cutting back on eggs (not big on meat, our eggs were a favourite menu item in our kitchen), we had little option to reduce this cost other than to buy them from battery hen farms. And let's be honest, you've really just given up on the value of life if you resort to that option. So owning our own chooks was the best option by far.

Having happy, free, egg laying ladies literally at our doorstep has simultaneously increased our consumption of eggs and massively reduced our shopping bill costs. On top of that it has negated any need for doubts about misleading labelling. The only costs involved now are feed and occasional medication  (I've treated my chooks for lice and worms once in six months). We've also found the easiest way to make other people happy is by gifting our extra eggs to friends and neighbours. In fact, people I work with have started salivating at the mere mention of home-laid eggs. And with wild looks in their eyes, two otherwise innocently-minded primary school teachers actually offered their souls for a regular supply.

So this all got me wondering - By selling our surplus golden orbs at mates' rates, could our chook ladies actually pay their way?

Objective -
to determine if the sale of our backyard eggs could cover the cost of keeping our ISA Brown chooks. 

Calculations -

COSTS OF KEEPING THE LADIES

Chook food = $30 (certified organic) - feeds 4 chooks for 2 months
                    = $3.75 feeds 1 chook for 1 month

Miscellaneous = $20 Pestene (lice treatment)
                        = $10 worming treatment
                        = $45 four hay bales for chook bedding and house floor
                        = $75 per year (this is a generous approximation, it's probably less)

Total Costs = $21.25 per month


WHAT THE LADIES GIVE BACK IN EGGS

4 chooks lay average of 2.5 eggs daily
                         = 17.5 eggs per week

We two chook lovers eat on average
                         = 14 eggs per week

This leaves
                        = 3.5 eggs spare per week
                        = 14 eggs spare per month


Results -
 FOR 14 EGGS TO COVER COST OF APPROX $20 per MONTH

We would have to charge = $17 for a dozen (!)
or                                      = $8.60 for 1/2 dozen (!)


Analysis - 
 Oh my. I mean our eggs are delicious but that's just a bit ridiculous. And with that price why wouldn't the buyer just say - "Piss off rochford,  ye tight arse. I'll get my eggs at Safeway"?


Conclusion -
 Four lovely chooks are enough to slash the shopping bill for two fresh egg fans and give them hours of contentment gazing at them. However, four lovely chooks cannot possibly be expected to lay enough eggs to completely cancel the cost of keeping them.  They're just four little chooks, doing the best they can... what more do you want??!

          

Chook Ecstasy

Most things you read or hear about keeping backyard chooks, while  potentially useful and informative, also have an unfair reputation of coming across as a  little religious in their enthusiasm for the humble hen. Their praises are sung so enthusiastically to non-chookers: They're just such lovely pets; They love being patted; I talk to mine all the time!; Their poo is just so rich and valuabe! Their little beady eyes are SO cute; These common chookist statements must sound like the utterings of a crazy man to the average citizen, innocent to the  ecstasy of chook husbandry.

Still, there must be something viral about this poultry madness, as more and more people with room to house a hen or two, are keeping these feathered ladies in their suburban backyards.

And those heathen souls who have yet to be saved are only a dozen homegrown eggs away from achieving enlightenment.

Mowing the Lawn vs No Dig Garden

I love to mow. I feel like Xena the Warrior Princess when I start up the engine with a confident yank. I suspect passers-by are secretly admiring my muscles when they see me start up the Masport. And afterwards, sitting in the backyard it occurs to me that admiring the short, tidy stubble is unreasonably satisfying. But, mowing in a symmetrical pattern and trimming nearby branches with zeal can lead to pedantic obsession. When you start having your cup of tea by the front door to avoid the back lawn you're desperate to mow, it's time to take stock.  When the weekly urge to mow the grass begins to grow into a deepening neurosis, you know it's time to....
Build a No-Dig Garden!!!

The only preparation is to have these things at the ready:

1. A barnyard* of poos (chook, cow, sheep, horse)
2. One big bale of hale
3. A stack of old newspapers
4. 10 or more handfuls worth of Blood and Bone

*The collective noun.

Two bags of each poo type for a strip of 4x1m leaves plenty of leftovers .

And it's all smooth sailing from there:

A more cost-efficient way to source the poo would be to head for the hills.... or a farm which would have this stuff in bountiful supply and probably at mates' rates. However, if you prefer to snuggle to the bosom of the nature-lovin city lady that is CERES, they're 10 bucks a pop at the resident nursery. 

Use some exact way of measuring out the space, e.g. taking one big stride to indicate a metre. Then, once you've worked out the area, pour three bags of black gold (sheep, cow and chook x1 each) to cover the grass (goodbye lawn, you trimmable temptress).

Lay newspapers thick (a good few week's worth of Saturday's Age should cover it). Then make them wet and soggy with the hose. 

Get yer gloves on for this bit. Bucket of Blood and Bone - handfuls of the stuff sprinkled over the top.

Cover with thick layer of hay ( I used the cheap grassy stuff, not fancy chickpea mulch). Sing 'Lay, Lady, Lay' to yourself while you do this. Replace the word 'brass' with 'grass'.

This bit gets exciting. Lay a bag of horse poo on top. This stuff we got from a farm out east. PACKED with fatty looking worms, which I didn't notice. But some resident ladies did.

 Disappoint the chooks by covering up the loot with more hay. And give it all a big soaking with the hose.

Then let it cook for a month or two. before seedlings go in. Peter Cundall and my mum reckon dolomite is also essential. They're probably right.

Egg-eating Dog

We got this email recently from Mum. My dog Sonny and I have been in a long-distance relationship for the past 3 years. As well as getting a little bit of country air, he's also been bonding with the grandparents (Mum n Dad / Dick n' Dor; For the lowdown on who they are, check out earlier blog post 'Dick n Dor: The Interview'). 

Needless to say, I had a bit of a larf at the photos that followed.

         Hi Joey and Jerram

         Recently we have been missing eggs!!!!!   Dick discovered one of the chooks
         was laying her eggs in Sonny's house and of course Sonny was gladly eating
          them, who wouldn't when they are freshly prepared on the premises?

         The photos tell the story. As Dick is working up there he locks the chook in 
          until she is finished and then hopefully will beat Sonny to the eggs!

        It all happens here, down on the farm.........yehah!!

                love

                       mum

Dirty Little Hands Head for the Hills

This week these dirty little hands cleaned up and shipped out to the farmy quiet country of my folks' property. While my mum and dad visit family overseas, our job is to tend to the animals, plants and general upkeep of the house.

Unlike my modest little Melbourne patch, here the gardens are of a standard Peter Cundall would be bloomin over. The vegies look after themselves; the fruit drying rack stands ready for the plenties of figs and tomatoes; instead of indian miner birds and mozzies, tiny wrens and lizards titter around the front yard. The strips of lawn in between the massive garden beds are soft and lush and perfect for midday snoozes and over-sized newspapers.

Beyond the sprawled house yard, there are chooks, bottle-fed baby lamb, dogs with permanent smiles.Daily tasks are not really tasks at all, but fun ways to spend the time. 

It's occurred to me as we walked through the wet grass of the top paddocks, that this might cost us a lot of money to stay if Mum and Dad renamed the place something like 'Country Retreat' and we weren't related.