i eat eggs every day. i love them. between my daughter and myself we eat 3 a day. my husband is always on me (as well he should be) about spending too much money on food. i DO try to keep it down but when you shop at whole foods only that is very VERY hard to do. it's not the pantry staples and fridge basics that get me...but the meats and veggies. you see we decided 10 years ago that we were going to be an organic family. never again would meat raised inhumanely and inorganically go into our mouths. never again would pesticide laden strawberries reach our gullet. and they haven't. subsequently i learned how to cook very well (toot toot) and we became foodies. so while i am learning the ropes of gardening so that i can grow my own veg, here in the drought ridden south with temps already in the mid 90's that is not an easy feat. i am superjealous of you california gardeners. you really do have it a lot easier than the rest of us folks. and i am not so sure i WANT to raise cows and pigs for their deliciousness but i DO think that i could raise chickens. how awesome would it be to have these beauties roaming around your yard....
so i did a little research...first starting with some basic math...(no easy feat let me tell you)
at 3 eggs a day that's 1,095 eggs consumed a year (more on the weekend when husband is home to eat breakfast with us-and i have not included the miscellaneous eggs used for baking and cooking but i'll factor that in later) so that means roughly 91 cartons a year and at $4.00 per carton that's roughly $364.00 a year in egg consumption. now while these chickens above are gorgeous i have no idea about their egg laying capability. from my understanding live chickens are pretty cheap. as little as 5 cents and up to somewhere in the hundreds. the average chicken for producing eggs is around 5 to 20 dollars. it apparently depends on what you want the chicken to do. and here is another fun little fact...YOU DON'T NEED A ROOSTER FOR A HEN TO LAY AN EGG!!!! i just assumed it was sex between the two and then some babies were made. silly (naive? retarded?) me. i mean...if the average chicken is producing 1-5 eggs a day...that's a lot of chicken pounding. poor chickens. lucky roosters. but that's not the case. crazy isn't it? the rooster is only needed to fertilize the eggs...for the egg to actually hatch into a chicken. otherwise it's just an egg. so now any vegetarians out there who thought that eating an egg was taking part in the massacre of a poor baby chick can now eat said egg with reckless abandon. now if..IF i do this i will most definitely do lots of research (as is my nerdy way) starting with all 3 of these books....
then i will have to get me one of these...it's called an
eglu .
it costs $515.00 and that includes 2 chickens. remember that i spend around $400.00 a year on eggs. so this will pay for itself very quickly. the company that makes it-
omlet usa offers a pretty cool service too:
Omlet USA can deliver the eglu cube, chickens and feed direct to your door. To be able to do this we have developed a special service with the best hatcheries in the country. During their journey your chickens are kept warm and comfortable in a straw lined box and they have a delicious melon to eat so that they arrive well fed!Your eglu cube will be delivered to you before your chickens are sent.
Your chickens are shipped around the 15th of each month. You can also order a 50lb bag of organic chicken feed from Omlet or you can pick some up locally. When you place your order we will be able to arrange a convenient delivery date for your chickens.
who wouldn't want to pick these up every morning??
what'dya think?
