The $175 Scrambled Egg Breakfast
by Rachel Tayse • March 21, 2010 • City Chickens, Local Food, Recipes & Meals • 9 Comments
Yesterday we collected the first egg from our backyard chickens!! Our guess is that one of the Buff Orpingtons laid it, as they were particularly vocal yesterday.
Today we collected another egg. This time we saw an Orpington in the nesting box so it surely came from her.
We scrambled the two smaller than average eggs together for breakfast and served it with homemade bread buttered with home shaken raw milk butter. It was the most delicious egg breakfast we have ever tasted!
At $175 (the price we paid so far for the chickens, coop, feed, and bedding), today’s breakfast was also the most expensive we have ever consumed. Our average cost per egg will obviously decrease over time. The chickens should lay about 250 eggs per year. At 33 cents per egg (the price I pay for farm fresh eggs), we will break even after egg number 530. If the four girls lay every other day (an underestimate but it makes up for future cost of food we’ll need to purchase), that’s two eggs a day, or 265 days until we reach the tipping point. 265 days from now is approximately Thanksgiving. And there you have an insight into how my strange calculating mind works.
I added this post to the Fight Back Fridays roundup, even though it is Sunday. I’m just so pleased with our chickens!
Congratulations! The first egg is very exciting!
We find that our four girls, in the hight of summer, lay six eggs a week. Right now, they’re laying about 4-5 eggs a week. They’re about 18 months old, so this is a good laying time for them.
Have fun and enjoy your egg bounty!
Thanks for the comment, Jessica. Six eggs a week would be perfect and we have plenty of friends who are ready to accept extras.
yeah!! Congratulations! I bet that tasted so good!
.-= erin´s last blog ..30 Days of Happiness: Day 27 =-.
Cool! I don’t think we will ever get chickens, but we’ve talked about it and pondered the finances of it and whether the chickens would pay for themselves over time. Sounds like a great breakfast (but admittedly raw milk makes me nervous).
.-= kim/hormone-colored days´s last blog ..Speechless after my speech on Capitol Hill =-.
Kim, chickens are a great learning experience kids, which adds to their value in my opinion.
Yum, yum yum! I can only top that with sausage or bacon from my own pigs! Nothing tastes better than your own home grown.
I hate to play Devil’s advocate, but this is what experience has taught me. There are many variables in your laying chickens’ future. Your Buff’s will probably go broody a few times this year and will not lay while broody. The hens may molt this fall and no laying during that time also. The neighborhood predators will eventually find the delicious smelling chickens in your backyard and they may cause unexpected damage too. Then there is always human error. I’d wait a full year before break even point. :/
.-= Denise´s last blog ..CSA Pick up tomorrow! =-.
Soon we will be able to add home made breakfast meat from one of your pigs to this meal! We can’t wait!
I guess I did forget to add in the potential loss of livestock and/or low laying times. But I also didn’t mention their ‘pet value’ which is pretty high in the view of our daughter at least!
So funny! We calculated that our first backyard chicken egg would be worth $700 (with all feed, coop, etc.) but then we were off our game a little and by the time we noticed ONE egg, there were already TWO dropping our per egg price to $350 just like that.
But then, we shared our two eggs among four of us creating some very tiny $175 per plate scrambles. Bon apetit!
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