First egg of the season!

@Monek Marie Wonderful! Ours in one of the pens have been laying occasionally. This is unusual. They arent frozen, I suspect, because there are a few hens in there that like keeping eggs warm. One of the other pens has had a few eggs...but they are usually frozen by the time we see them.

I think there will still be buyers. I've been approached 3 times already. Unfortunately, I had to tell these former customers that the ones they want are the ones I'm also searching for. I need top quality for my purposes, so my search is a bit more narrow. That said, this breed is rare & good stock seems to be getting harder to find.

I think if people only want a few hens, the feed prices won't scare them too much. The latest strain of bird flu (last year's new to North America bird flu from Asia) might do more to strike fear into them. Fear is powerful.

I'm not up on the hatchery prices here (our local one isn't done compiling their offerings yet), but I'm finding that most reputable breeders are selling heritage hatching eggs at roughly the same price as last year. Chicks are more than last year. Of course, mature prices will increase.

It is true that you can only go so high before people stop buying because the stock gets too expensive to justify for the income they are willing to sacrifice to get them.

Chicks will be slightly higher than hatching eggs. The price of electricity has skyrocketed too, so increased incubating costs, not to mention brooder/coop materials, chick feed & bedding.

But, as you know, the feed prices are also high. The price of chicks (at least from the breeders) is high, but that's actually quite expected for good, well bred pure, worked on stock. What the killer is besides the feed is the shipping. I just put a reserve order in for fresh blood for my jersey giants. It is at $7 CDN/egg for a total of $84, so with the packaging, will cost $90. That is a stable price from last year. These are still considered rare birds (especially higher quality stock).

Some rarer breeds than this have been priced, at times, in the 100s per chick (I'm sure I saw one type over $300 US(!) at least 5+ years ago already) + shipping. Greenfire Farms in the US imports from overseas and of course, will pass that cost on. It is very expensive to go through all of that. They have to pass that on to make it profitable to bring in new to North America breeds.

Anyway...the shipping for the 1 dozen eggs has almost doubled the shipping cost. This is Canada Post. Courier (Purolator) will be even higher, but they treat the eggs more gently with little if any breakage, and are preferable for that reason).

You consider that 50% is what you generally expect out of shipped eggs that aren't cracked or broken from rough handling in their travels. Out of that, it will be mostly roosters. If you want 6 hens, they say get 18 eggs.

I wanted to buy a minimum of 2 doz., but she can only supply 1 doz./week. After hopefully only 2-3 days of shipping (and hopefully not also sitting over a weekend) and then one day of sitting for egg cell stabilization, viability drops substantially. To top that off, I want blue and what she finds is the mixed color of black & blue usually is mostly black and occasionally splash (that's what I find too). It is a risk, but I'm at a point where is I want to continue with top level stock, I need to get more. The thing is, the chance is even lower that I will get ones that are the standard I am looking for from them as well, but it is high enough that I should be able to work out any flaws. It will just take time.

These eggs are from BC. I will be calling a poultry judge out in Ontario early next week to see if he can set me up with anyone out there who might have the quality I need...and so, it continues.

I will be asking $17/chick (day old-1 week) is I'm able to hatch any extras from the giants this year. I will double check other breeders' asking price yet, but this will most likely be what it is. Last year, I had raised my price to $16 from $15.

Last year, I was selling a year old to mature pair for $100. I won't have mature birds to sell this year, since this breed grows for 1 1/2-2 years.

This is only one breed. I am wanting 3 other breeds (blue copper marans & blue/black ameraucana, & silkies to replace what the weasel killed off last winter). I will sell 3 pairs of my chocolate ameraucana off to replace them with better stock. I haven't been enjoying their attitude toward newbies, so out they will go! That should bring in $50-$60/pair which should help. I'll probably try for the $60/pair early on next month to see if there are any takers.

I hope to get most eggs in before the bird flu scare gets here once again.

I will be selling top quality black copper marans chicks with dark egg genes this spring. I will be asking $17/chick. I don't sell these as hatching eggs because they are more difficult to candle and I get $204/doz. healthy chicks over $90/dozen eggs.

There are many even more expensive breeds out there. These are just my favorite breeds of chicken. Silkies are not far behind though!

Anyway, that's where I'm at this year. I will continue to watch breeders, inputs & continue to consider prices...