Monday, January 3, 2011

Cost of Eggs

I was at Whole Foods last night and usually I'm just buzzing through the place, using my cart as a battering ram to get out of of there as quickly as possible.  But it wasn't crowded last night so I took a more leisurely pace.  I noticed baskets of loose eggs in the produce case and went to take a closer look.

First off, have you ever seen an emu egg?  OMG, they are BEAUTIFUL!!!  They look and feel like a really big avocado.  And I think you'd need a hammer and chisel to crack one open.  They are also pricey.  I think they were $28 each.  Too bad there isn't a chicken that lays an egg this dark green.  How cool would that be?

They also had cage free, free range, organic chicken eggs.  These were 50 cents each.  I'm a tad math challenged and I looked at that for a bit, and then it hit me.  "THAT'S $6 FOR A DOZEN EGGS!"

I blogged a while back on the cost of raising chickens (http://the-spice-girls.blogspot.com/2010/12/cost-of-raising-chickens-getting.html) and promised to blog more in the future.  I don't expect to re-coop my cost of getting established but I'm hopeful that I can break even once the girls start laying eggs.  And at $6 a dozen, I'm starting to think that breaking even is setting my bar too low.  I might actually see some savings.

Not just from the eggs, of course.  I'm already composting their dropping and plan on fertilizing as much of my garden as possible with this which will save me a bundle.  The question is, will 4 hens make enough to make this happen and can I compost it fast enough.  Time will tell...

1 comment:

  1. Here's a thought--can you vermipost the droppings (worm composting)? They go a lot faster than traditional compost, and it's just great stuff. You can get a great setup with minimal to no worm handling needed on amazon.com...or you can build your own, with very little tools needed too!

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