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More Egg Economics – How Forrest Pritchard Makes It Work
Shake a bush at your next farming conference, and see how many wan
Lovely article.
In our experience, it’s the “Time Vampire” part that seems to make them the most unprofitable. Where do those 6 person-hours a day go? It was running us about 2 hrs/day for 200 birds, which cost more than feed. 6 hours for 1000 cuts labor costs by 1/3, so clearly something you’re doing is working better.
Would you please be more specific about how economies of scale factor in?
With a flock that size, how did you manage disease? Death loss was our other biggest theoretically controllable cost.
Thank you.
The economy of scale kicks in around 400 birds for us because of infrastructure and chore costs intersecting with a flock size that maintains a reasonable pecking order. More anecdotal than anything else, perhaps.
As far as disease goes, I posed this question to my farmhand of 20 years: “Can you ever remember our hens getting pneumonia or avian flu or cocsidiosis (sp?)” and he shook his head ‘no’. I think constant access to the outdoors, fresh bedding and aeration of the coop floor and clean feeders/waterers are the key here. As far as death loss, 99.9% is due to predation and accidents (smothered, trampled, etc.), with unexplained death/disease being extremely rare.