Get chickens to sell the eggs

“Here is a little tidbit I can share with you, looking back on when we used to sell chicken eggs from our farm. It was an adventure, to be sure, and it came with quite a few lessons learned. A certain number of chickens will generally lay a certain number of eggs. Which is wonderful, because it helped us figure out how many customers we could reliably provide for while still having enough eggs for our own family. But then, as time went on, word got out that we had chicken eggs. And now more people wanted to buy from us. Which is great! Right? So we got more chickens. And they laid more eggs. We had eggs coming out of our ears. It was amazing. But then customer #3 decided to get her own chickens and customer #7 decided she only wanted eggs once a month. Customer #12 wanted three dozen a week but only on Tuesday and only if we could drop them off for her. Customer #13 didn’t need eggs all summer because she would be at the lake. Customer #15 decided she only wanted duck eggs—had we ever thought of raising ducks? And suddenly we found ourselves with many many extra dozen eggs to sell, but with half the customers that we had before we added all the extra birds.”

“I had to wait seven months to get my first egg. [...] Once the hens started laying regularly, I checked the nest boxes daily. When my flock had eight hens, I’d often get anywhere from three to six eggs a day. But this was sporadic. Eggs are naturally seasonal, and around November, the chickens slowed and then stopped laying until roughly March, when the days got longer again. Then, after a few months of springtime laying, some hens went broody—they were ready to hatch chicks—and preferred to sit on top of the flock’s laid eggs, puffed up like angry orbs. Other times, the hens hid their eggs under shrubs where I wouldn’t find them until days or weeks later—a clutch of as many as 15, hidden away. I bought a separate mini fridge just for eggs: to store enough that I, at least, had a regular supply when the hens went on vacation. But I also had enough irregular excess that I gave eggs away to friends and neighbors. Sometimes, people asked if they could pay me for the eggs. I said no, knowing that the price I’d have to charge to recover my expenses would be well over $1 an egg, maybe more.”