chickens

Discontinuing Egg Production: Our Farm's Difficult Decision and Future Plans

It is with a heavy heart that we must inform our valued customers that after careful consideration, we have decided to discontinue raising laying hens on our farm for egg production for the time being. This has not been an easy decision for us, as we understand how much our customers value the high-quality and healthy eggs we have been providing.

Over the 5 years we have been producing eggs we have continued to grow and update the opperation in an effort to make it financially sustainable. Despite our efforts, we have found that increasing our number of hens to meet demand and reach "economies of scale" has not helped.  Labor demand has increased just as much, or more, with more hens, organic feed costs have gone way up, and other hidden costs like equipment issues and hen losses quickly push us below the break-even point.

Even with the higher prices on eggs we are now all seeing, we would not be able to sell our eggs wholesale (in bulk) at the prices we would need to get for our truly rotational pastured practices.  To give you an idea, we need to sell our eggs for a minimum of $6.00/doz, which means in the grocery store they would be at least $9.00/doz

We are considering a different approach for raising laying hens in the future, one that is more in line with our "Full Circle" vision. This may include a smaller flock of chickens that are bred and raised here on the farm and have dual purposes. Older mama hens would raise their babies until they are old enough to be separated into girls (raised as laying hens on pasture) and boys (raised as meat birds on pasture). Unfortunately, most breeds of chickens currently have only one or the other purpose, which means that when laying hen chicks are sold, almost all of the males are "put down." We would much rather not contribute to that system.

Currently, we will be focusing on our vegetable and pig enterprises, but we may have some eggs available for purchase only on the farm in the future. We will keep you updated on our future plans.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support