The price of eggs
 

What accounts for the fact that the price of a dozen eggs is so low? We are currently buying large eggs for 70 cents a dozen or so in Arkansas supermarkets.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the price of eggs for the years 1960 through 1999 (the latest available on my reference) and compared it to the price of a gallon of milk and a gallon of gasoline for the same years. Prices are not adjusted for inflation.

1960 eggs 0.57 milk 0.49 gasoline 0.31
1970 eggs 0.62 milk 1.15 gasoline 0.36
1980 eggs 0.91 milk 2.16 gasoline 1.25
1990 eggs 1.00 milk 2.78 gasoline 1.16
1999 eggs 1.08 milk 3.32 gasoline 1.17

Thus, eggs cost about 2 times as much forty years later, gasoline was over 3.5 times as much, while the price of milk was nearly 7 times as much as it was forty years earlier.

Starting with the 1960 price and adjusting for inflation, in 1999 the eggs should cost $3.25 per dozen – and a gallon of milk should cost $2.80 – and gasoline should cost $1.77.

What do you think accounts for the low price of eggs relative to milk and gasoline?


My sources were
http://www.1960sflashback.com/1960/Economy.asp (an interesting site)
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi (sometimes depressing)

Egg production has become very very efficient, but the quality has gone downhill. The hens just sit and eat, drink, lay eggs, poop. They have computer controlled feeders, waterers, conveyer belts to take the eggs away scan the eggs for grade, size, wash and package.

At this time there is an over supply of eggs and poultry products. According to the farm market reports the price should drop even more.

Well I think the store boughten eggs are just worthless and maybe that's why we don't pay very much for them. However, the price of farm eggs aruond here are still only a $1.00 per dozen and it's been that way for almost the last 20 years. I know feed has gone up quit considerably so I don't know why the farmers aren't charging more. But it might be because a lot of people think farm raised eggs have too much flavor and turn their nose up to it. The last time I raised chickens (about 5 years ago) I was selling them for a $1.00 per dozen and I only had about 2 dependable customers but they would only buy what they could eat in the next few days. There was times I would have to feed some of the eggs to the dogs.

Maybe supply and demand?

just thinking...
 

I know that compaired to like 5 years ago there are a whole lot of ppl raising chickens than there used to be. Every day I hear someone say I just bought chicks what do I do! The are panicked and don't know what to do. I would say we get at least 5 to 8 ppl a week that are new to chickens. Many of them live in towns or suburbia. They just want them for eggs. One lady said they lived in a city and they were hiding them in the basement! So lots of folks are buying chickens and I guess they are finally making an impact on national suppliers. I have all the fresh eggs I want and sell the hatching ones or feed them to my dogs which is a good trade cause 10 eggs is equivilant to what he would have eaten in dog food. Which is way higher than chicken feed. Even tho they both have the same ammount of corn...

Arklady/ who probably has more chickens than she needs! :)

the price of eggs
 

About 20 years ago it was explained to me as.....the people who control the price of eggs are in control of grain prices. I understood it as the people who control the grain to feed the chickens to lay the eggs are making their profits on the grain and keeping the price of eggs low. A BIG industry that us little farmers can't keep up with. I raised the price of my eggs to $1.25 and still don't think I clear a profit considering the space, labor, and electricity (for the light) that they take but the price does cover the price of the grain. If my eggs don't sell quickly I take the ones that haven't sold and crack them in quantities that my family eats in a meal, blend them up for scrambled eggs, put them into a zip-lock bag and freeze them for later use. We use them all up especially during the winter when the hens aren't laying as well. I sell the fresh eggs and we eat the frozen ones.

Well here some of the "farm fresh" eggs are $3.75 a dozen.....That is if you buy them off a farm that sells produce and other items. If you buy them from someone who is selling their extras then it is $1/doz

farm eggs around here are about 1 dollor a dz. allso we give a few dz. away every week a dollor isnt going to make or break you

I would guess that people eat less eggs per person, since they are 'bad' for you.

Also, they are easily produced, and mass produced.

Which is easier (for you) to do, make a gallon of milk, a gallon of gas, or a dozen eggs ?

I probably feed 8 dozen surplus eggs per week to my hogs .... :-(

I was surprised to find store eggs here for 50 cents/doz on sale

I bought 3 doz to freeze, when needed

Overproduction. Overproduction. Overproduction.

This has been the story of American agriculture for at least the last two hundred years.

Eggs (and chicken meat) are cheap because it is simple and cheap to produce so that we now see egg factories with a hundred thousand birds or more per house and if you don't have at least a million birds total chances are you're not going to be in the business for much longer.

No different than any other sort of commodity agriculture. Get big or get out.

And if prices rise enough that you can actually make a decent living doing less than dawn to dusk labor the government starts allowing foreign imports.

From reading various boards and mailing lists these last six or seven years it seems the only folks who are making a half-way decent living in agriculture do not do commodities. It's value added all the way. Problem is that it's a fairly small market and to make it pay off you have to really get out and hustle for it because it ain't going to come to you. Not in the beginning at least.

Joel Salatin, Robert Plamondon, and a few others are showing the way, but it's still going to be a long tough slog. Government regulation is perhaps the biggest one of all.

I'll feed the eggs back to the birds before I sell them for a dollar a dozen. It's not worth my time and won't even really cover the cost of the feed. A very good reason not to keep so many birds that you are going to get hurt that way before your market develops.

.....Alan.

Tsdave, I understand your logic about what is required to produce eggs vs. milk vs. gasoline. However, were the requirements for producing each somehow different in 1960 in relation to one another than they are now?

Egg production is, no doubt, more mechanized and "efficient" now than it was forty years ago. But, isn't the same true for milk production? (In 1960 farmers could still sell milk in the old five-gallon cans at roadside. Is that still done anywhere in the country?)

Yet eggs actually cost less now than in 1960 (considering inflation), while milk costs more than it did then (considering inflation) with a much greater increase in price compared to eggs.

Is it largely a matter of advertising effectiveness (and the "bad name" for eggs with concern about cholesterol)? Are price controls (milk marketing boards) a major factor? Is feed cost related (greater increase for cattle feed than poultry feed)? Are substitutes being made more for eggs than for milk?

Something has changed dramatically in the price structure of the two since 1960, and especially since 1980.

Nowadays, you get more eggs out of a chicken than you did 40 years ago and you get more milk out of a cow than you did too! Genetics, proper feeding, etc.

I used to sell eggs about 5 years ago for $1.00 / dozen. If I would have pushed it, I would have had more buyers than eggs. But I don't think I was making a profit. Between the feed, the time it took, and I delivered the eggs to the customers it turned from a pleasure to work. At that time I had about 150 chickens.

Today I have about 30 chickens - many of them are 2 years old or older. I don't buy feed for them anymore. They scavenge what they can from the yard and clean up what the goats don't eat. We use the eggs for ourselves and some family members. If I would ramp up production, I would charge at least $1.25 / dozen if not more.

I'm happy to report to you that I can buy milk for 1970's prices!!!!!!!! If my goats don't produce enough for me, I can go to the local cow dairy that is 1 mile from my house, draw a gallon out of the bulk tank, and pay $1.50! Fresh, cold, RAW milk for $1.50!!!!!!!!

Just read a Ms. farm report. Ms. commercial laying hens produce about 1.5 billion eggs annually. That is a lot of eggs.
Boiler production is up 4.5% nationally compared to last year.
Wholesale breast prices were 25% lower in 2005 than 2004. The decline has continued in 2006.
European and Asian consumers has reduced their imports of U.S. poultry because of avian influenza.
Boiler production is expanding at a 3.2% increase in 2006.
These all combine for lower prices.
The same happened to pork many years ago. Small farmers could not compete against the large producers.
Next will be beef, expect it to happen in the next 5-8 years.

Micheal Smith, you are so lucky! A few months ago I went to about 3 different local dairy barns asking to buy raw milk from them and everyone of them turned me down. Stating that if they was to get caught selling or giving to the public they could face shutdown by the health department. I've been keeping my eye out looking for someone who is milking their own cow and am not having any luck. I've been seriously thinking about buying my own milk cow even if it means no more summer vacation trips.

We get $1.75 a dozen. We only sell about 5 to 7 dozen a week. That is enough to pay for their food and bedding, plus we get all the eggs we can eat, farm fresh and yummy! So factor in saving about $6.00 in eggs each week...I just bought 27 replacers, little Barred Rocks...the kids are sick of taking care of chickens, but I like them.
The part we hate is washing the eggs before selling them or eating them.

Eggs were on sale here a few weeks ago...25 cents per dozen!

Please indulge me. Store eggs are not the same product as farm eggs. There is a small segment of the population that is willing to pay you a reasonable price for them. We have really high costs so we're able to get $4/dozen easily. We're sold out through July. Others near us get $2 some get $6. Our cost is at least $2.50/dozen. We feed them seeds, custom milled food and allow them pasture. If you are going to coddle your hens you desirve a decent price.

the cheapest i have seen eggs around here is $.59/doz. we sell our for $1 now. because i can't stop buying chicksor hatching them and the wife and teacher wife eat breakfast at school so there is no real need for a lot of eggs around here. in fact, i just fed a couple dozen oldies to the pigs today.

Our local store sold a dozen eggs for 19 cents last week.

Wal Mart in my area charges $1.22 for organic eggs. That should make sales more difficult for homesteaders' home grown eggs. It's more convenient to just pick them up at Wal Mart, instead of driving a couple of miles out of the way to get them from a homestead.

Dang, organic eggs in the stores here are around $5.

Organic eggs in the stores are still inferior to "home grown" eggs, as most organic eggs are either cage produced, or the hens are on the floor inside buildings.

Same problem with organic milk that comes from the store. Most of it is produced by penned or stalled cows that are NOT on pasture.

The folks who buy based on price alone should not be your target market. You simply cannot compete against million bird egg factories because there isn't any way to match their economy of scale.

The folks who will eat organic only and nothing else should not be your target market unless you are yourself producing organic eggs.

It's the folks who want quality that should be your target market. These are the folks who want to see and taste a difference in your eggs that they cannot see in the factory produced eggs or even the $5.00 a dozen organic, but not otherwise different eggs.

If they can't crack your egg into a bowl next to a factory egg and see a difference you're not likely to catch these folks.

That market is out there, but you generally have to seek it out and develop it. With my last flock it took a while to get the point that I was regularly selling everything I was producing and that was with just fifty birds. Eventually word got around and I started selling them all, but it didn't happen overnight.

This time around I have fewer birds and will charge more.

.....Alan.

Yes, I know I'm lucky!!! Of course, being a neighbor and the farmer knowing you helps as well. I would think any stranger coming around would make a farmer suspicious as they don't know you. How is the farmer to know you are actually really wanting just fresh raw milk and not planning on putting a lawsuit against him! (I'm not saying YOU in general, but you know what I mean.)

And our farmer is taking a risk selling milk to me as well as other people. He leaves a faucet hooked up to the bulk tank, and I've heard of other farmers doing this as well - until somebody doesn't turn the faucet completely off and the farmer comes in later to an empty bulk tank!!!!!

You might be better off getting a goat to milk. Along with being cheaper, they are smaller, easier to handle, and eat less. I would think a good dairy cow would quickly have you swimming in milk where as one or two goats should keep a family in milk most of the year.

As for vacations, I have goats and go on vacations. If I go for more than a day, I luckily have a person who will feed the animals and actually milk as well! But I've gone on plenty of overnight trips leaving in the morning and coming back the following evening and all is fine. I leave plenty of feed and water out, and the goat is full of milk and ready to be relieved when I get home! Not the best for milk production, but I haven't really noticed where it has affected it all that much either.

Hope you find someone or are able to get your own cow or goat(s)!!!!!!!!!!!

True!! I bought a dozen of the organic store eggs and found that the yolk is still much paler and the flavor not as good as in "homegrown" eggs.

I do like the organic milk Wal Mart sells, but I have no other organic milk to compare it to.

I also prefer free-range, homegrown eggs -- BUT I am not willing to pay ten times as much, or five times as much, for them. Nor am I inclined to attempt to convince anyone that those eggs are "superior" to egg-farm eggs. It may be useful to note that I don't buy $20 a pound coffee to obtain a marginally "better" product.

I would prefer to put the money into something lasting (tools for example).

Have we answered the question about why eggs have gone down in price over the past forty years while milk has gone up considerably (adjusting for inflation in both cases)?