No One Wants My Eggs

a lot of what people are suggesting is illegal here in indiana.

you can't sell off farm without an egg license/permit. you can't reuse cartons (however people can bring their own used cartons to be filled). selling at farmers markets, resteraunts, stores, delivering all require a license which includes being inspected. mailboxes are the property of the USPS regardless of the fact we bought and put them up only they are allowed to use them and it is a federal offense to put anything else in (though only your local mail carrier will report you). newspaper tubes are fair game but as a newspaper carrier I may pull it out if it is in the way in my tube (tubes are not owned by the customer).

and I sat down and figured for a good brown egg layer at 1/4 lb of feed a day, 200 eggs a year I have $1.42 in each dozen eggs. so figure all of your costs into the price of your eggs. if I could find *farm fresh eggs* for a dollar a dozen close locally, I'd probably get rid of my chickens and save money.

Fro my experience, here in WV people will only buy them if they are cheaper than the store bought eggs in my area. Some will pay more, but most will go witht he cheapest. It hurts, as the free range are so much better. We put alot in the compost pile.

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Vicker
If you're born to hang, you'll never drown.

Mel:

Thank you for providing an Economic Story for pricing eggs!!!!!!!!!!

By my calculations I need $1.35 to cover my chick, starter/grower feed, and layer feed costs. This does NOT include housing, utilities, packaging, labor, or return to management for eggs.

As with many self priced commodities most people have NO idea of their costs to determine or justify their prices. These people ruin the market for those that understand the TRUE cost of producing products, whether eggs, broilers, or hay.

Jim

Shelly,
Do you live in central IN?

When I decide to buy eggs at the supermarket, it is because:
1. I don't know anyone that sells eggs.
2. Gas at 3.47 a gallon is too expensive to go driving around looking for eggs.
3. I don't know if your place is clean, or whether you have a huge guard dog that will attack or lick me to death.
4. How do I know if you are at home, and want to be bothered with $2 egg sale?

My point is that it takes some time to develop a market. Is NOT going to happen in a few weeks.

I have owned a business for 15 years. In all that time, I still haven't sold the first thing sitting at home. Sometimes, you just got to go get 'em.

I am curious...are you trying to have an egg business that is profitable as an income to your farm, or are you just trying to cover some of your feed costs by selling excess eggs?

Clove

if it was me id jump at the chance. only place i know to get farm fresh eggs is 4hrs north.

Some very good tips here. Don't mention that they're free run, that could be scaring people off, they may think they're too expensive. Also say, "free" or maybe "farm fresh eggs $1.00" Let us know how it goes in the next couple of weeks. Good luck. Chris

On advertising and such, sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I have 30 Jumbo styrofoam cartons. Free to anyone willing to pay shipping. $4.60 if I take out enough to come down to one pound (about five cartons) or from $4.60 to $7.50 for all of them. First one who PMs me to get payment address gets them. If you want all, I'll need your Zip Code to calculate shipping cost.

Thankfully I don't live in the U.S.!! Our mailboxes belong to us, not our mail service. Everybody drops flyers, papers, brochures, telephone books, etc in our mailboxes here

Have you thought about putting ads up in your local feed stores, grocery stores etc? That is all that I had to do is go around our town. I put up ads about our eggs in our local grocery store and feed store. And i have been bombared with calls since then. I hope this helps

"Thankfully I don't live in the U.S.!! Our mailboxes belong to us, not our mail service. Everybody drops flyers, papers, brochures, telephone books, etc in our mailboxes here"

Primary reason behind this in U.S. if mail is stolen from the box it is then a federal offense. With your situation probably best which could be done is theft of personal property of unknown value. Secondary is the U.S. Postal Service has a monopoly on delivery for first class mail.

The U.S. Postal Service has an agreement with UPS they will delivery UPS packages to areas which UPS doesn't want to go out to. In this case driver takes packages to local Post Office and UPS pays USPS the local delivery fee. Cheaper for UPS than to send a truck and driver out to the boonies.

USPS also has the say so over the box itself. You can take one of their approved boxes and decorate it, but cannot make up one of your own from scratch. Had a friend in Ohio who was on a regular mailbox baseball route. He made one up out of 1/4" plate. USPS wouldn't delivery to it. He then took one of their boxes and put it into a cage made from 1" rebar. That was fine.

Thats because their boxes are of such good quality......

Let's see....you live in the country and you have chickens that lay eggs...maybe the neighbors have chickens that lay eggs also...so they don't NEED your eggs...

Mon

Maybe, but not in my case. I know for a fact that my neighbors don't.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

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Maybe they are not buying your eggs because the health nut people have convinced them that eggs are not healthy for people to eat.

You know the people who are brain confused now a days, listening to the dumb scare info to try to get everyone to go veggie.

bumpus
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I'm the only person on my road with egg-laying hens right now. Others have had a few, off and on, but lost them to predators.

I have one neighbor who keeps a disproportionate number of roosters, doesn't really provide much in the way of shelter or protection, doesn't ever collect the eggs, doesn't eat eggs, doesn't even provide nest boxes, and can't figure out why she doesn't have more hens, and why they so seldom hatch any chicks, and doesn't understand why so many of the chicks they do manage to hatch just disappear. They just run loose and untended until something eats them.
Go figure.

I get times of lots of egg sales, and times of not much. I'm about to change my sign due to some of the suggestions, and add a price and hours open for business. Leave space to add produce, in season. I bet that'll increase my sales.

I had built up a nice customer base where I worked, and when I changed jobs I worried over the fact that I had to start over. It has taken me almost a year to get the word out (through the hospital) that I have farm fresh, free range eggs. I get $2.50 per dozen, and I sell 10 dozen or more per week. I advertised on Craigslist as well, and I picked up a regular customer (4 dozen per week).

I also GIVE eggs to my neighbors, because it's the neighborly thing to do. My neighbors look out for me, we care about each other; they push me out of the snow bank when I need them, they don't freak out if a goat comes to visit, and they give me cookies at Christmas. I love my neighbors, and I know I'm very lucky.

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I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.

The professional signage industry has changed rapidly with new technology which allows them to make professional-looking signs at a reasonable cost. In fact, some of the highway billboards you see are printed on a canvas-like material via the equivalent of a giant ink jet printer.

Great attitude ! Here Let me give you a few stars!

Have you tried a card? Say buy 12 doz get the 13th FREE. Just write their name down and keep track of it.

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People go to the store and buy all of there groceries at one time and the gasoline is to high to drive out in the country and waste all of that gas ( $3.50 a gallon) to save pocket change .50 cents a dozen on a couple dozen eggs.

bumpus
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