The chicks keep growing. The hens keep laying. I keep keeping track.
First, here’s a little update on the baby chicks. They’re three weeks old now, and starting to enter into that ‘awkward’ stage of losing their baby fluffy stuff, but not quite covered with full-grown feathers. They’re curious, happy and are non-stop-eaters-poopers-and-cheepers.
Here are a couple of pictures I just took today:
The end of March marks another month in the egg tally to calculate how much those lovely chicken eggs are costing. (If you want to see how I’m calculating ‘costs’, here’s the first post about it). It wasn’t the best month in terms of egg production and costs.
First, I had Harriet out of the laying race as she faithfully sat on her nest waiting to become a mama. Her nesting urges cost me around 20-25 eggs for the month.
Second, I had to invest in a few new things because of the baby chicks. I no longer had any chick-sized food or water containers, nor did I have chick starter. This drove my costs up.
Those two issues combined ended March at an all time high for the cost of eggs: 52 cents each. Yikes! (And raising the year-to-date total to 38 cents per egg).
Of course I console myself with the fact that these added expenses will aid me 5 months down the road when my new chicks start laying eggs. I also remind myself that there’s sometimes a cost to raising food humanely. I’m especially convinced of this since I learned about what all that chicken labeling on egg cartons really means. My chickens scratch around in grass and eat bugs and plants. They still have their beaks intact. And they’re happy.
They also make me laugh and provide hours of entertainment.
Some things in life have a value above the dollar amount gained. I still firmly maintain that raising chickens are one of those things! I have yet to regret the time and investment. And I LOVE eating healthy eggs!
And, of course, there’s always next month, right? Another chance to lower the cost of my fresh eggs…if nothing goes wrong!
