What is the true cost of buying eggs? Is it cheaper to buy eggs than raise chicken and produce your own eggs?
Short story long: NO, and yes! Its not complicated.
If you just want a tray of eggs, no problem, we will sell them to you. But chicken rearing is way much more at least for the following reasons:
Its not just about eggs
As any backyard poultry farmer will tell you, poultry rearing is not about eggs. It’s much more than eggs.
Poultry farming is a way of life, depending on who you are, where you live, and what you’re into. Some people are into poultry. Some poultry farmers choose a grounding and connection with nature via their flocks.
We are tempted to say that even if chicken did not produce eggs, there would still be tons of poultry farmers around the world. Nature, however, might not allow such a possibility. Besides some people are chicken people. Better yet, some chicken are people.
FYI there is a whole lot of poultry farming dedicated to ornamental chicken. Yes, there are poultry farms where chicken are not kept for egg or meat production. But we digress.
A wildlife in your backyard
As a way of life, poultry farming is not about ‘paying’ your chicken to produce eggs for you. In a way, it’s like being responsible for this whole other species.
As every poultry, or any other farmer might confess, rearing animals has this whole other dimension to it. It makes you curious. You become interested in how chicken hatch, and grow. You become super curious in how they mate, do their social relations, and how their pecking order works. You are captivated by their temperaments, and so much more.
One of the most fascinating things about chicken is that they keep clean by bathing in dirt. Another interesting fact is that some chicken can live upto 20 years.
When you’ve your own chicken, you can feed your insatiable curiosity on a daily basis. Even more interesting is watching chicken grow into their own person. Feathering, and developing their own unique look, a characteristic obvious to those who rear heritage breeds.
Producing your own eggs
Producing your own eggs is not the same as buying some eggs.
There is a kind of satisfaction that comes with poultry farming, taking care of poultry birds so they are healthy and productive. Whenever you go to the coop and collect some eggs, you appreciate your chicken. Moreover, you are driven to figure out how you can appreciate them even more.
Backyard poultry are some of the barnyard animals that enjoy some good feeding, especially if compared to factory poultry farming. On social media you can find farmers feeding their chicken all sorts of vegetation, to their chicken’s delight.
Its not always about the money
As backyard poultry farmers might tell you every once in a while, poultry farming is not just about money. If it was, we would all have sold our chicken ages ago and there would not be any left.
For sure there are other investment or money saving opportunities backyard poultry farmers can pursue, yet they choose poultry farming.
Shhh! 🤫 we are on a quest to solve the chicken and egg problem
Let’s get into the realm of cuckoo-ness: if anyone is going to crack the age old question of what – between the egg and chicken – came first, it is going to be poultry farmers.
You can thank us later, or now, if you like.
Although we cannot promise that we will solve this philosophical conundrum, we are doing our best. Ours is an inside job. We are working with the some of the best chickens out there. And one of these days, a chicken is going to spill the beans, or lay the eggs. You know what we mean.
To be frank, it is sane to think that some poultry farmers have solved said conundrum, but you’ve got to speak chicken to get in on the answer.
What are your thoughts?
As a poultry farmer do you get these kind of questions? Let us know by leaving a comment below