Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have you seen the Price of Eggs ????

Good post.

Eggs will have to get much more expensive to justify the expense on our “Chicken Palace” presently under construction. It’s been a project in the making for quite a few years….the concrete should be pretty well cured by now! 🙂 memtb

Nice. A concrete floor is essential, to keep any predator from digging under the structure to get at the chickens while they sleep.

One crucial hint that's often missed by people who've never kept chickens before: The chicken hatch (the one used by the chickens for ingress and egress) needs to be elevated off the outside ground by a foot or more. Give them a narrow ramp for getting in and out. The function of this is to keep snakes from using the hatch to get inside.

Since yours is already constructed level with the ground (so the concrete floor can prevent predators from digging under), you will need a ramp on both the inside and the outside, for the chickens to access the chicken hatch going in and out. Either that, or an elevated inside floor even with the elevated hatch.

Snakes are getting in

Thanks Hawkeye, We’ll be using solar/battery powered doors for the chickens, which will close at night. We’ll be adding a solar powered light on the inside for adding in egg production when daylight periods fall below 14 hrs/day, and will have a solar powered attic fan to help keep cool on hot days, also placed the windows as high as possible to help heat escape from the ceiling area.

Snakes are pretty much a non issue…..in 24 years, we’ve seen only about 4 or 5. This area is so harsh/undesirable ….even snakes avoid it! 😉. The concrete floor has an elevated wall full perimeter……the top is about 10” above the outside dirt level. So the 10 (+/-)” plus the doubled floor plate, gives a pretty good elevation increase!

The fenced area is 100’ x 100’ and will be divided into half by a fence from house center to the opposite side perimeter fence……making 2 - 50’ x 100’ garden spots. That’s the reason for the two powered doors, one on each side of the fence. We’ll garden one side, and the chickens will work/live on the other side! W’e’ll swap sides each year! memtb

I paid $17/60eggs at small grocery store, walmarlin next day $8/60eggs.
I started crying

Yep….local eggs are darn expensive. But…..our closest Walmart is over 80 (each way) miles away, in a town I try to avoid. So, it’s a bit over 90 miles to our “preferred” Walmart! memtb

Three years ago, I started this flock with 6 chicks. Lost one after a month, so my flock of 5 birds have been supplying all the eggs we can eat. Last year they produced 633 eggs. The flock is down to 4 now, so we'll see what we get this year.

Not just eggs. It's food in general.

Nice!👍

I eat a lot of eggs, 3 almost every day…..so, we’ll be keeping girls pretty busy! 🙂 memtb

Nice setup.

You can trace stuff that has tripled in price directly related to big corporations that control the market share and Cal- Maine does that with eggs, Vista does that with the primer market that is just an example for 2. Do you really think that's an anomaly.
Hell look at big pharma, Logan Health is buying up just about every hospital and Dr office in Montana ya think there's a plan.

Thanks,

I built that coop 10 years ago, with the idea of making it bulletproof against the coyotes, foxes, and raccoons we have around here. Like memtb, “eggs will have to get much more expensive to justify the expense on our Chicken Palace”. But we have a nice coop, and it didn't brake the bank, but it was a lot more than I started out to spend.

Teddy Roosevelt busted his truss, then we let it all start right back up again.

Yes, darn pricey! I roughly estimated that with inflation factored in…..I should break even in about 147 years! 😂 memtb

36 eggs for $6.14.

Chicken houses are just like gun rooms or garages, as soon as you start useing them you think " I should'a made it alot bigger!!"




Scott

My four hens are really solid egg layers. I have a family of four, and they provide enough and then some. They are super easy to maintain, and they decimate insect populations around the house.