OldMcDonald
Platinum Member
No, at 50% production they were doing a lot better than covering their feed costs. At the time feed was about 30c a kilo and eggs were about 20c each. Now feed prices are well over 40c a kilo and egg prices are the same, but even so the feed cost is only 2 eggs per bird per week. These are Euro prices, but us $US prices for comparison. A kilo a week is about 5 ounces a day, and if you are using much more than that then feed is either being wasted by the birds or it is being stolen by birds or animals.
I killed them because of poor egg quality, the same reason we only kept our commercial birds in lay for 11 months in Scotland, because egg quality would drop from then on. They were still better than my opposition were selling, but we always aimed to maintain a better quality than everybody else. There our feed costs per week were equal to the price of one Grade A Large egg. FYI 4 grades in Europe - Small (cannot remember the min weight but up to 53 grammes) Medium (53-63 grammes), Large (63-73) and XL (over 73).
Maximum egg production in percentage terms occurs, under range conditions, at 30-something weeks as a rule, although it can occur before 30 weeks, and it should be better than 95%. It is all downhill after that, but it is not unusual for birds to hold 95% for a few months. Average egg size increases of course as the birds get older, so the eggs become worth more if you are commercial.
I killed them because of poor egg quality, the same reason we only kept our commercial birds in lay for 11 months in Scotland, because egg quality would drop from then on. They were still better than my opposition were selling, but we always aimed to maintain a better quality than everybody else. There our feed costs per week were equal to the price of one Grade A Large egg. FYI 4 grades in Europe - Small (cannot remember the min weight but up to 53 grammes) Medium (53-63 grammes), Large (63-73) and XL (over 73).
Maximum egg production in percentage terms occurs, under range conditions, at 30-something weeks as a rule, although it can occur before 30 weeks, and it should be better than 95%. It is all downhill after that, but it is not unusual for birds to hold 95% for a few months. Average egg size increases of course as the birds get older, so the eggs become worth more if you are commercial.
