How to Pay Too Much for Home Grown Eggs
Admittedly, The Omlet Eglu is a very cool-looking, functional, ingenious design for an urban chicken coop.
Of course I want one, but that’s besides the point. I only “want” an Eglu if it’s free! Because when you do the math paying for one just doesn’t make any sense…
The national average for a dozen eggs is $2.17 according to the Washington Post.
A standard Eglu Omlet costs about $500-$600 USD and keeps two chickens. Let’s say each of your girls lay an average of 250 eggs per year. JUST factoring in the cost of the Eglu Omlet backyard chicken coop – and not things like feed and your two healthy pullets – each of those eggs would cost you $1 (assuming you only paid $500 USD for your omlet eglu, but you probably paid even more). And a buck a piece of course is $12 per dozen: 5.5 times the amount you would pay on average if you just bought the eggs.
OK, the Eglu is going to last you more than a year. Let’s say it lasts as long as five years. But if we’re being reasonable here, let’s say you had to buy $10 worth of feed per year per bird, and the two birds cost you $13 each from somewhere like McMurray Hatchery, which all adds after tax somewhere around $50 or more in initial expenses and, assuming you keep both birds alive and producing, another $20 per year for feed. So over a five-year period you spend $650 for 2,500 eggs. (208 dozen).. IF everything goes swimmingly – which, as most chicken-owners will tell you, it won’t.
Congratulations, you just spent five years paying $2.32 a dozen for eggs – .15 cents more than the national average if you had just bought them from the store.
I know, I know – you’re not just raising chickens to save money. You like to watch them because they’re funny. You like to have fresh, organic eggs. You like the smell of chicken poo. But the same is true no matter what your motivation is for raising backyard hens… Save yourself some money buy making your own hen house. You can even reuse an old dog-house if you want. Mother Earth News has a good how-to guide for building your own portable hen house and run for under $100 (click here to read it).
But like I said at the get-go, it’s not that I don’t WANT one. It’s just that I wouldn’t PAY for it. So if the folks at Omlet want to send me an Eglu I’d be happy to review it. Hint, hint…
Or maybe I can find one for $20 bucks at a yard sale here in a few years.
If you want to build your own but don’t know where to start, paying $13 for a book with 45 different easy-designs for chicken coops is better than paying $500.
Yeah, I saw that a while ago. What a crock! I suppose if the manufacturers can get people to pay good money for that thing, then more power to ‘em. We built our mobile chicken coop and pen mostly from scrap lumber pulled out of dumpsters. We paid for hardware cloth and some wheels, but I’d guess it was easily under $30, and the pen and coop will certainly last 5 years or more. The eglu looks like it’s made out of plastic. And it sits out in the sun all day long. And we all know how easy it is to repair plastic.
Just saw the Eglu online yesterday, and was SO stoked!- until I saw the price. I have wanted chickens for a long time- but not that badly! Also- how does a little plastic keep any amount of heat in the winter?
I am surprised that this article is comparing the cost of home grown eggs to the cost of regular store eggs that come from factory farming. A cost comparison between home grown and organic free range eggs, a product that can be found in most health food stores for a price considerably more than the national average, would be a more appropriate comparison.
I know that my homegrown eggs cost more per egg than factory farm eggs, but my hens are happy, the yolks are orange, and the flavor is unmatched. Not all eggs are created equal.
Amy,
The article is making the point that you can build your own chicken coop that is just as good, if not better, than some of the ones being sold. You can build it cheaply and easily with little to no carpentry skills.
To some, price is not as big of an issue as it is to others. Some want chickens because they like to have them around as pets and for the fresh, organic, free-range or cage-free eggs from their own backyard – not because they hope to save money or be self-sustaining.
Tip: Buy a yard sale child’s playhouse. Add wire run and next box. Et Voila! You have a cute little porta summer home for your hens. You will need something more substantial for winter.
Feb 3rd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
[...] saving money is not your primary reason for raising chickens, you might consider something like the Eglu Urban Chicken Coop for the not-so-cheap price of [...]