Backyard Egg Profit Calculator · guide
Short answer: add up a year of feed, bedding, replacement hens and cartons, add your hours at the wage you want, and divide by the dozens you actually sell. The calculator does it for your own numbers.
Everything below is arithmetic on invented numbers. Not financial, tax, legal or food-safety advice. Costs, prices and rules belong to your flock and your state. No warranty.
20 hens laying 70 percent of the days, 8 percent of eggs cracked or kept at home, a quarter pound of feed per hen per day at 45 cents a pound, $30 a month of bedding and other costs, $8 pullets that lay for 2 years, 35 cents of carton per dozen, 4 hours a week and a $15 an hour wage, selling at $5 a dozen.
Feed at $0.56 a pound cuts profit per hour to $1.71; at $0.90 it is -$1.25 an hour and the price you need is $13.63. Hens laying at three quarters of the rate (52.5%) cost $4.64 a dozen; at half the rate (35%) they cost $6.79 and the price you need is $22.72. A dark winter with a $4 price, 60-cent feed, 45 percent lay and 15 percent lost has a cash cost of $6.95 a dozen and loses $3,805.69 a year after wage. Try the dark winter button in the calculator.
At $10 a dozen the same flock earns $12.11 an hour: pasture-raised, delivered or subscription eggs sell for more because they are a different product, not because the hens are cheaper.
Enough that the price covers your cash cost and pays your time. On the default numbers that is $11.53 a dozen for a $15 an hour wage, against a cash breakeven of $3.57.
Feed, at $821.25 of the $1,398.37 cash cost a year, 58.7%. After that your own hours matter: 208 hours a year at $15 is $3,120.00, more than all the cash costs together.
No. It is arithmetic on invented numbers; check every figure against your own records. Not financial, tax or food-safety advice. No warranty.