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Unfortunately, I know there won't be enough eggs to go around this week. We have been running out at Fresh Fork and at OCP. It seems that by not raising our prices, we've picked up some fair weather fans.
We plan our production on eggs a year out. Usually this time of the year we have excess, and I utilize them in our kitchen for quiches, but this year we are very short.
What's Going On? Our production hasn't been impacted, but the commodities market has been. Eggs are in short supply and prices have skyrocketed.
Are the farmers making a killing? This is the interesting part. Most layer barns in Ohio are part of an "integrator" program. It works like this:
- Farmer takes out debt to build a layer house. Layer houses can cost as much as $1.5 million.
- The "integrator" provides the hens and feed.
- The farmer does the chores and makes sure everything is OK. He gets paid between $0.27 and $0.32 per dozen for his work.
So right now, feed prices aren't up. In fact, they are down. And the birds have been in the barns for the better part of a year. So somewhere in the integrator model the integrator is making hay, so to speak, and the farmer is holding steady.
How many birds are in a commercial egg layer barn? Many barns are stocked with 20,000 birds. Each bird lays about 1 egg per day. For easy math, let's say you get 90% lay rate. About 6 eggs per bid per week, so 120,000 eggs. 10,000 dozen eggs.
These barns are highly automated with automatic scrapers for manure and automated egg collection. The farmer usually spends about 30 to 60 minutes a day walking thru and loading the eggs onto a pallet and into the cooler. A truck comes every few days to pickup eggs.
Our network of egg producers are much smaller. I have a small flock and so do 4 other farmers in the neighborhood. Our birds are raised with unlimited access to the outdoors and it is a tad more labor intensive.
Unfortunately, we can't increase supply quickly. A few problems:
1) There are no "pullets" available. Pullets are young hens - about 14 to 16 weeks old, just starting to lay. Typically, you schedule your flock months out with the hatchery. They hatch the birds and start them.
2) Even if I I could get more chicks right now, and set eggs to hatch, it's 21 days until they hatch. Then 16 weeks until they start laying small eggs. By week 20, the eggs are of marketable size.
3) Eggs for chicks are also in short supply. Because some of the big hatching flocks nationwide have been hit hard, the supply of eggs for chicks is almost non-existent.
When will this clear up? I don't see this changing before Memorial Day, maybe even 4th of July.
What are we going to do? I'm working on hatching some more heritage/standard-bred chicks. This will increase supply around July or August. We are also trying to figure out an "egg subscription" to protect those who buy eggs from us weekly, not just the fair weather fans. Details to come.
What about proposed tariffs and inflation? I don't see tariffs playing a big role here. What we are dealing with is simply supply and demand, and unfortunately increasing supply of food does not happen overnight.
I'll write more in a future newsletter, but I see prices going up this year, particularly on commodity beef, dairy, pork, and chicken. We will be keeping our prices steady on pork and chicken. There will be some market influences on the price of stocker calves that will probably impact the cost of beef and dairy.
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