I make egg noodles and freeze them. I'm always busy in the mild seasons outside and don't have a lot of time to make noodles, so my extra winter eggs are a Godsend. I went into summer last year with thirty pounds of egg noodles in the freezer and yes......our local charity kitchen was thrilled with my egg donations. They even saved the cartons for me and gave them back.

I stopped raising eggs to sell and culled my flock down to about twenty five. But I found out that most of my customers who ooohed and awed about how wonderful farm fresh eggs are resented me passing on an increased cost for winter eggs and bought them at the market when my eggs went up to cover increased feed costs and decreased productivity. They were still a bargain.

I got a lot of whining when they came back last summer and I told them I went out of the egg business but they killed it for themselves.

Calliope --

I love egg noodles! Never made them, is it a lot of work?

--Johanna

Yes, and no. We eat tons of them, and at first it seems like work to set up everything for one batch, so that's why it's time effective to make several batches at a crack.

I have a hand crank pasta roller and cutter, and that makes life a little easier. But, I've made many batches before I got this with a rolling pin.

The directions are super simple. Alls you need is flour, salt, and whole eggs. I use four or five eggs at a crack, salt them lightly and add flour .......mixing until the dough is so stiff you can barely work it. Cut it up into about eight lumps. Roll them as thin as you want your noodle to be (flouring all the time to keep them from sticking). Let them dry just a little and then cut them into noodles. I make so many at a crack, that I bought a large wooden clothes drying fold-up rack to dry them out hard before I put them into pound bags and into the freezer. But, you can just lay them out on cloth on the table and do the same thing. You'll never want a store-boughten noodle again.

Johanna,

You can also scramble a bunch and pour them into ice trays and freeze. Take the egg cubes and store in freezer bags. Use them in the winter time for baking.

Eric

We have breakfast for dinner once a week-scrambled eggs, fried eggs, eggmcmuffin, french toast, that's good for a couple dozen.

You can make coconut macroon cookies, Baked Alaska(meringue baked over icecream), Lemon Meringue pie, Boil for the dogs (though they eat the raw duck eggs every year anyway), potato salad, deviled eggs.

I know what you mean about customers. My neighbors used to buy eggs for $1.00/dz for the longest time. 2 or 3 years ago the layer pellets went up several dollars a bag (our layer chickens don't free range), so I asked for $1.25/dz. They started to not pay, & complained, so I stopped offering our extras & didn't replace old hens. I just don't understand it, store-bought at the time were more expensive by like .50-$1.00 more.

Now I get my family always expecting a free dz everytime I see them. Times are hard for us being a household of 7-9, and I give freely the extras to them, but oftentimes they'll take (not ask) my last dozen. Wouldn't irritate me so much if they gave something back once in a while KWIM. I get the same thing with the garden, they don't want to bother with one because I have such a big one!
Brendasue

Thanks for the input. I made some noodles for supper. You can see the results on my blog!

--Johanna

Here is a link that might be useful: Noodles post

I know what you mean about too many eggs. Any ideas with selling and using extra eggs would be most helpful.

With only five chickens we are still getting 5 eggs most days and I wanted to add a few arcuna chickens for thier colored eggs and something that lays brown eggs. Oh my, only me and DH live here. I give away as much as possible, but family lives so far away and have of them are vegeterians.

The other problems is egg cartons. We just plain do not have that many, so we cannot give them away. I don't mind paying for chicken feed, it cost's us less than dog food, but I do mind buying egg cartons, then giving them away for people like Brendasue said, they do not give anything back.

I am thinking of putting a sign out, asking perhaps $1.00 for eggs and .50 cents for the carton, but do not want a lot of stragers coming to the house at all hours. Help!!

Joan

Joan,

$1.00 for eggs. You are still giving them away. I sell my duck eggs at the Farmers Market at $7.00 a dozen. I don't think even at $7.00 it's paying for the feed. The cartons I use, perforated in the middle, are $0.48 each.

You can also try the honor system farm stand. May or may not work.

Eric

It is always easier to lower prices than to raise them. Most begining farmers, and hobby farmers make the mistake of being to charitable. Folks should expect to pay you for your hard work, and the superior quality of your products. I wholesale my pastured eggs for 2 dollars a dozen. The company then resales them for 3.25 and they say they could sell twice as many at that price.
Josh

Ohhhh so many questions. Yes, I suppose 1.50 a doz is doable. How to sell them? The honor system seems fine to me, but the investment of a refrigerator, the electic cost, now the profits..that are not there...is smaller. I would still have to buy egg cartons. Farmers market? Not worth the gas to drive 45 miles one way. Resturants? No.. not around here, they buy cheap, no matter where the supplies come from, they need to keep their prices down so the farmers will continue to stop in. And again the closest is 40 miles round trip. Cooking, baking, I am doing my best. But geeze, just how many egg noodles can one family use????

Think I will just enjoy Charlie and his angels crowing and a clucking, as the refrigerator slowly fills up with their generous offerings. I do love their sounds.

Joan

We sell our free-range organic eggs at $3.00 a dozen, and our customers know to bring the cartons back. Our neighbors get free eggs, and save any cartons they or their extended families have for us--right now we have about 50 assorted cartons in the pantry!
When we renew our flock later this spring we'll be getting more eggs, and if there is an excess that we can't sell, they will go to the neighbors or to the local food pantry.
I didn't know eggs could be frozen--thank you for that idea!

This is a little off topic, but has anyone calculated the true cost of producing one egg.

Feed
Labor
Housing
Bedding
Gasoline
Electricity

I'm guessing my first egg may have cost me a $1000.00. Will you ever catch up. Just thinking outloud.

Eric

I am fortunate. I am able to sell eggs for $4/dozen most of the year because we get a lot of city people "weekending" around here. In fact, I decided since it was the beginning of February I could e-mail my blog "subscribers" with updates and mention that I have lots of eggs available. Within 24 hours I have reservations for six dozen.

I highly recommend keeping in touch with your buyers. Most people here only want a dozen every two or three weeks regularly, extra if they're having company. So I want them to remember that I'm a small producer and keep them eager to get eggs from my girls.

--Johanna

Here is a link that might be useful: Busy Solitude Farm

I bought inexpensive and pretty baskets for each of my egg clients (total of 4 right now!) they all bring them eagerly to have them filled! I get $3.00 per dozen.

Josh is right. We make a big mistake being so charitable! I could have a dozen paying customers but always shared when I had an abundance - now they would not dream of offering me a dime. I still love to share but it's nice to have a few extra bucks for scratch or some other treat - like a flock block!

If you are so inclined and have a farmers market in your area - you can make quiches for a handsome price to use up some of your eggs. I have found a person who attends regularly and sell from her stand. GIves me a little more scratch money.

I figure our first egg easily was $1500 - $2,000! LOL but seriously! Those hens live better that we do in many ways! But oh, the joy they bring!

I made money on mine for quite a few years, and priced as low as I could profitably. Incubated my own chicks. Most of my customers were rural people who grew up raising chickens and for one reason or another didn't want to, or couldn't keep flocks anymore. They also understood decreased eggs production in winter.

The regulations kept getting more and more constrictive, as far as packaging and the farm produce markets who use to buy my overage were faced with new licensing just to buy farm eggs not grown on their own farms so the demand for those evaporated. I claimed the income on my taxes and did it all above board and then new packaging regs were coming into effect disallowing recycling cartons. etc. Surveys asking me if I moved a chicken off my property in the last year, agricultural forms, etc. etc. etc. Proposed animal tagging legislation, etc. All for a measly little coop of chickens with excellent, fresh pure eggs. Nope.....not worth the hassle.

I inherited a wonderful coop. Came with the property. Concrete floors, Large and with a battery of south-facing windows and a tin roof. Soon as we painted and repaired the boards the hogs ripped apart, the tax assessor raised our taxes. rofl.

I have anywhere from 400-600 pastured hens at anyone time, and so buy my feed by the ton, which saves considerably on the feed. I looked into my tax return for this year and it has cost me an average of 83 cents per dozen eggs produced and pkgd. Now as I mentioned I buy bulk, my cartons cost only 9 cents apiece. Feed is 200 dollars a ton. As production increases cost per unit of production decrease.

Heres a place to get discounted egg cartons eggcartons.com
josh

Josh,

What is your definition of pastured?

When you see on cartons Free Range, it should make you think. Free range, are normally large flocks on the floor in a barn. The Farmer can call it free range because they leave small hatches open to go outside. Most chicken don't venture out. They know where the food and water is. Free range is better then caged, but not the same as "pasture raised".

I buy organic feed at around $20.00 50lb bag. 40 bags to a ton = $800.00. That's a big difference. Sure I would get a better deal by the ton or pallet, but I'm a small operation.

I use the same egg carton company. With shipping a 100 cartons are 48 cents each.

Eric

I have found the perfect solution beyond the few friends who want to buy the odd dozen. I am trading with my physiotherapist - for every dozen I take him, he takes $5 off my bill. Love it!! He feels he is getting a deal as they are fresh eggs, and I certainly am! Generally I get $4/dozen, cheaper than free range in the stores.

When I was growing up, my wonderful old neighbor lady would boil the extra eggs and mash them whole and give them to the chickens. Brings back good memories.

Mario--

Yup, on very cold mornings I scramble eggs for my girls, and they go crazy for them!

--Johanna

I have not research this. Is it wise to feed chickens with chicken eggs? It's like feeding bacon to pigs.

I'll have to do some research.

Eric

Johanna,
I just found the farm life forum today. Makes me miss the days when I was able to have chickens. Never thought of giving them scrambled eggs. Lucky birds!

I also cook up eggs to feed back to my chickens when they are getting older or just can't stuff any more into the fridge. As far as selling eggs, I have also run across a few people who begrudge paying the WHOLE dollar that I charge for them. Most people happily do so and will only accept the eggs for some kind of money exchange or barter. You obviously don't get rich but it does help to offset the feed in a small way. I know some friends who take all their eggs to a farmer's market in the "city" and makes about $3 each from them. My usual customers are generally those at work. I love bartering (esp in spring, for garden produce) but I had one lady offer several cartons in return for a dozen eggs. I would have given her the eggs but it kinda turned me off a little since people actually stop by here and put TONS of cartons in my truck, on my doorstep, etc. After reading here I guess I'm lucky on that front. Lori

I gave up my chickens for a lot of the reasons stated here. Production was originally intended for just us but it soon became apparent we had to create a market or give them away. Since we worked full time, we just didn't want to fool with trying to sell them so I told my coworkers that if they brought me their cartons I would give them eggs. That lasted about three weeks and they couldn't remember to bring the cartons. Carrying eggs in plastic grocery bags was just not practical for me. Broken eggs that had to be cleaned up before handing them over was not what I wanted to do so I just told them that I got rid of all but a few of my hens and no longer had enough to share. Should have heard the complaining.

As to some things you can make with your eggs. I have a very old Imperial Sugar recipe booklet. It's falling apart but I love it. It has a recipe for angel food cake which uses a lot of egg whites but along with that it has a "golden sponge cake" recipe that uses the egg yolks. I never make an angel food cake without making the sponge cake too.

Angel food cake was a staple when growing up. To this day, I just cannot enjoy a cake mix angel food cake. It is kind of funny to me as most people have never had a "real" angel food cake! Ah, what they are missing!

Make Quiche !!! Quiche takes 8 eggs.

My husband says plant them in the ground to grow egg plants. hahahaa.

That's silly, you would end up with more eggs. hohoho.

Eric

Freeze Them!

Here is a link that might be useful: How to freeze Eggs

I take it some of you have separate freezers! I'd love to be able to store so much frozen stuff (eggs, quiche, noodles) but I only have the freezer part of my fridge, and it's quite overflowing! But I do appreciate all the ideas. Thanks!

--Johanna

I recently crunched the numbers. Feed is included in this figure, but all the rest, as Eric stated, allows me to earn $3.00/day for all the hard labor, infrastructer maintenance/replacement, nutrient handling, etc., etc.

You have been helpful in my quest for using surplus eggs now the Farmers' Markets are over. Thank you.

Yes we have a separate freezer and the economy it affords us pays for itself. We tried freezing eggs this year and it works. I saved the cream containers and scrambled the eggs to pour in. When they defrost they look a little thick and funny, but taste just great for scrambling or cooking. Pancakes, etc...
My husband makes egg buckets out of used #10 cans, with a riveted handle on the sides. We give these to neighbors for the eggs we give them. Put a little hay in the bottom and voila! When I sell eggs, it is usually to strangers or people I do not know well, and then I can charge $3.00 or mor a dozen. My daughter would sell eggs at the ice rink she goes to to coaches and she had a neat little business going. I didn't see any of that money for feed though.

I know this post is a bit older, but I stumbled across it in Google & wanted to weigh in as a consumer of small-farm eggs.

I happily pay $2.50/doz to an area family who has a flock of about 20 hens that they raise naturally/organically (just no certification, but I've seen their setup & it's impressive), and I drive at least 25 miles round-trip to do it too. I think they could safely wiggle up another .25-.50 if they needed to cover their costs, but then past that I might look elsewhere (gas is expensive; I just like them a lot & their eggs are to die for).

A fair price is a fair price, and with organic eggs in the store STARTING at $4/doz (and not being even remotely as palatable), I think anything under that is fair. I guess what I want to say most is that I hope new chicken-keeping folks decide to stand up for themselves when it comes to their eggs; decent people will realize it's worth it & keep coming back, and the people who are looking for cheap ones/a handout can go back to the nasty, factory-farmed ones you can get in the store for $1/doz. You deserve to be rewarded for all your hard work and dedication to keeping healthy chickens.

I boil the whole egg and mash them up for the hens. I recently gave ten to a friend, now have 8 hens and a rooster for us to use. Thanks for the idea for egg noodles!

I just cannot get to the city for higher prices, now about $4.50 a dozen. Only can get $1.00 a doz locally, I guess farm community keeps them cheap.

Cheri