I answer a listener question, “How can I make my small laying hen flock more profitable?” With feedback from the community, insights from The Fighting Farmer, and personal experience, we dive deep into ways to prosper from your small flock of laying hens.
I’ll tackle the answer in three sections: management, pricing, and markets/marketing.
Management
You are an integral part of your pastured poultry business, and it’s reasonable to have a discussion on the ways you influence the results and perspectives of your small layer flock.
- Picking the right breed
- Judge the gap (how are your birds performing compared to what you expect)
- Feed management
- Flock management and husbandry
- Egg packing and cleaning
- Expectation management
Pay critical attention to the discussion on judging the gap and expectation management. Judging the gap looks at the difference between your reality and your expectation, especially in terms of lay rate and feed consumption. These are the two biggest management points to gain ground in your profit question.
You also need a healthy dose of expectation management with flocks less than 200 hens. Know that you will be inefficient and while you should be able to show a return on the investment, your small layer flock is a contributing piece of the farm, not the centerpiece.
Pricing
You should always know your costs. It’s the only way you can determine if your sale price has a gross margin. Knowing your margin is the only way you can make decisions about whether or not you’re showing a profit.
Remember this. Labor scales meaning tending twice as many hens does not require twice as much labor. However, feed management and lay rate does not scale. If you have poor lay rate and poor feed conversation with a small flock, you will have poor numbers with a large flock.
You also can’t expect your customers to pay for your inefficiencies, such as an unwillingness to address management choices or inefficient systems (hauling water, cleaning dirty eggs, etc).
Marketing Insights
I drew heavily on the Pastured Poultry Talk Facebook group for insights. In summary:
- Be loyal to your core customers
- Use eggs as value-added customer touches
- Use low friction sales
- Find your sweet spot on flock size
