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[VAN DELL JORDAN <vdjor AT yahoo.com>]

As an old timer I can remember when we could take the
surplus eggs to the village store and they would buy
them for a quarter a dozen, early 60s.  That was my
spending money.  If the hens didn't lay enough I had
no spending money.
I understand that the industrial chicken producers
have taken over the market to the point that there is
no 3rd party to sell eggs or poultry to.  Only option
is direct to consumer, which, of course is a lot of
what we have been talking about.
My dad calculated once that if the resources we put
into chickens and milk cow were put into cash crops we
could buy eggs and milk and have some money left over.
  Since taking care of milk was a lot more work they
gave up the milk cow but continued to raise chickens
for a couple decades, more a cultural decision rather
than economic.
Van Dell

--- "Lisa K.V. Perry" <lisakvperry AT gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/8/06, Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Almost everyone keeps too many hens. Unless one
> wishes to have an egg
> > bizness, fewer hens works out. Eat when there are
> eggs, eat something
> > else when there aren't. We homesteader types get
> pretty heavy into food
> > preservation. I find it can become a bit onerous
> after a few decades.
> 
> 
> This was us.  Two years ago we had 20-22 hens and
> two to three roosters.
> Gave a rooster away and one of the two remaining had
> an untimely demise.
> 
> The boys had a casual egg business with a few
> customers, but usually we had
> too many eggs and hard boiled most of them.  My boys
> love h.b. eggs and will
> eat with a sandwich, instead of one or for a snack. 
> They weren't wasted,
> but I forgot about freezing them.
> 
> Because of the darn stray dog, in May he killed all
> remaining chickens (the
> young productive hens) but one.  That hen has
> appeared to recover but she is
> our lone hen for now.  We need to split an order
> with a few people or buy
> some from someone who has plenty, would love to have
> 6 or 8 hens.
> 
> Lisa
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