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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Re: eggs

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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lh AT pressroom.com>
  • To: sunnfarm AT bellatlantic.net, Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Re: eggs
  • Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 11:27:05 -0400

We use a chicken tractor of sorts (actually a chicken house on wheels, houses built on old trailers) in conjunction with electric bird netting and we sell an egg share as an add on to our CSA vegetable share. It comes out to $3 a dozen and the demand was so great that we had to turn people away. We stopped at 70 dozen a week. At that price the profit is marginal. I consider the egg share a loss leader type of undertaking. Next year the price goes up to at least $3.50 a dozen.

To us, the pastured chicken/ chicken tractor part is important. Since May the chickens haven't moved (we have crops in all the usable fields) but during the winter our 170 birds move from one place to another every couple of weeks. The idea was originally to reduce weeds but I have observed something I consider more important: the fields where the chickens' pastured have far fewer insect pests (including flea beetles) than the fields where the chickens didn't winter. Imagine the joy of putting out your eggplant without the danger of losing them to flea beetles?




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