How Much Do Blue Eggs Sell for on Torn
If you've got a purebred rooster and your hens are laying well, selling hatching eggs can be significantly more profitable than selling eating eggs. I'll walk you through what you need to know, the one Federal law you need to follow and supply you with a free printable to make your cartons look adorable!
Can You Actually Make Money?
If you are willing to invest the time to do a bit of market research and then offer breeds you love that are not typically available in your area, you can bring in enough income to turn a profit. While rare purebreds will always fetch the highest dollar, filling a niche market can prove to be profitable. For example, Sky Girl Farm in Cleveland, Texas has extremely unique shades of Speckled Olive Hatching Eggs available for $80 per dozen. She's bred 7 generations of laying hens to produce some incredible earth tone combinations I haven't seen elsewhere. To do this she's crossed true Ameraucanas with Copper Marans but you'll notice she also offers their purebred eggs and a rainbow layer mix of eggs from every breed. This is a perfect example of maximizing profits from the smallest number of birds and breeding pens.
Start With a Purebred Rooster and Hens
Most people want to buy rare breed purebred pullet chicks so they will always be the easiest to sell. Colored egg laying pullets are also very popular, especially breeds that lay a bright blue or speckled olive egg. Barnyard mix chickens or chicks from a mutt rooster are considered undesirable and their eggs will be hard to sell. The only exception to this rule is olive eggers, which require breed mixing to produce olive and moss green colored speckled eggs.
Look for Current and Upcoming Trends
The COVID chick buying panic of 2020 created a lot of new backyard keepers, many of which are families. It is common that once new chicken keepers discover blue and green eggs, colored egg layers are at the top of their wish list. Chocolate laying Marans hens and olive eggers are popular now and will continue to be. I expect to see a huge increase in demand for colored egg laying hens and breeds that lay close to 300 large eggs per year. Unusual russet brown, terra cotta and moss colored eggs are also seeing an increase in popularity.
At the moment there is a beginning trend of people wanting Khaki eggers (an earthy tan egg often with brown speckling) and Gray eggers, which is typically the result of a heavy bloom deposited over a faint blue or green egg.
If you are aware of these trends, you can make it easy to sell your future eggs by thoughtfully selecting your breeding stock now. Investing in good quality, healthy chicks will pay big dividends later.
Add a Couple Hens and Branch Out into Colored Egg Layers
If you are breeding with a rooster who is from a blue or dark layer breed, you can easily offer colored egg layers along with your purebred hatching eggs without needing to build additional breeding pens or keep additional roos.
For example, my Whiting True Blue rooster has two Welsummers in with him and the purebred Whiting hens. The speckled brown Welsummer eggs are easily identifiable and I know all of the pullet chicks that hatch will lay an olive egg. I've also got two peach laying and one blue laying Americana hens with the Whiting Roo, giving me a total of 4 different types of hatching eggs I can offer from one coop. (Purebred Whiting True Blues, Olive Eggers, Green Laying Easter Eggers and Blue Laying Easter Eggers). Clients love the selection. Knowing they can have guaranteed blue, green, olive and speckled olive eggs from the chicks that hatch from one carton of eggs is a great opportunity!
Making the best use of your single coop or breeding pen by offering one purebred plus one or two colored egg layer hybrids is a clever way to potentially triple your sales. Here are some ideas of what purebred roosters and hens you could mix to accomplish this. (Note that most dual purpose, brown laying breed roosters are not ideal for this task.)
Selling Hatching Eggs for Profit is Simple
All you really need to do is to make sure your nest boxes are very clean and that they are lined with fresh straw every 48 to 72 hours so the eggs laid are well cushioned. Check the eggs you crack to eat for germination discs to ensure fertilization is happening regularly. Completing a test hatch with your own eggs ensures your rooster is fertile. It also gives you chicks to photograph so you can show the expected appearance of offspring.
Follow Federal Laws
The National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) is a national program that partners with federal and state departments of agriculture. NPIP provides flock testing and certification that your flock is disease free so your hatching eggs can be shipped across state lines. Please note that you cannot legally ship hatching eggs across state lines without NPIP certification. There are also individual state requirements for the importation of eggs from out of state. Luckily it is legal in most states to sell hatching eggs in your local area directly to buyers who intend to incubate them.
No Poopy Eggs
If your hens are laying poop covered eggs, which are not good for selling or hatching, I've got a trick that can help. Toss 1 cup dried meal worms in 1 teaspoon of food grade diatomaceous earth until the meal worms are coated. Feed 1 Tablespoon to each of your laying hens as a treat each day for the next week. Eggs will begin to be laid more clean by day 3. If you don't have meal worms, toss raisins in the diatomaceous earth but feed fewer. Remove all rye from the hen's feed if it is present; it makes their poops very sticky and clean eggs are unlikely to result if your feed mix contains rye.
Offer Attractive Packaging
This section includes affiliate links to products I personally use that appear in these images.
If you're asking $2 (or more) per hatching egg, don't hand your client a reused grocery store carton. Instead present them with a visually appealing, labeled carton. It helps communicate that you care about the quality hatching eggs and offspring you are breeding. Colored cartons and sweet half dozen cartons are alluringly cute, which can also help you gain word-of-mouth sales. Clear cartons are a great option if your eggs are especially unique looking. I use a corner rounder punch on my labels to create that nice rounded edge, as shown.
Download the Hatching Egg Labels Shown Here
Head on over to our Etsy shop to see additional custom designs and have your farm name added to the label!
FREE BONUS: Printable Hatching Eggs Breed List
This handy breed list page has twelve lines for you to list what buyers can expect from each egg. Simply number the eggs and write the corresponding info on the same number line of the breed list sheet. This is especially useful when selling Rainbow hatching egg mixes or Easter and Olive eggers. It reminds clients what each chick should look like at hatch or what color egg she is expected to lay. Buyers will appreciate your considerate attention to detail.
A Word About Shipping Eggs
Shipping eggs is very expensive, both because of the express postage and the amount of protective packaging that must be purchased to prepare your eggs for rough handling. Because people are unlikely to pay high prices for common breed hatching eggs, shipping should only be an option for your rare breeds and show quality birds. Note that people expect you to include 4-6 extra eggs to cover those damaged – or shaken to death – during shipping. You'll also need to pay for yearly NPIP certification and ensure your eggs ship with the proper documentation.
My advice would be to start by selling your hatching eggs locally to determine if you should invest in the certification and expense required to be a hatching egg shipper. You may find local egg sales to be so profitable that you never have the need to expand. My experience outside of Houston, Texas has been that my hens cannot lay enough in the spring to satisfy the local wait list for colored eggs.
How to Advertise Your Hatching Eggs
Forget social media platforms that ban everything. Download the MeWe app and search for your city or state poultry group. (Houston Area Backyard Chickens and Texas Backyard Chickens & Fowl are both fantastic groups for fellow Texans!) Because MeWe allows the selling of livestock, chicken breeders and buyers have flocked to it. Listing your purebred hatching eggs for sale on MeWe is usually an easy sell. Take the time to snap eye-catching pictures of the eggs next to your labeled cartons. Pictures of chicks from the most recent hatch of the same eggs are also a good idea to include.
Craig's List is another way to sell hatching eggs but I prefer MeWe where I can see first and last names of interested buyers. At this time Nextdoor has not yet banned the sale of fertilized hatching eggs but chick sales are absolutely forbidden and posting pictures of chicks along with the hatching eggs can also get you reported.
Ready to Try It?
If your hens are fertile, the nest boxes are clean and you've got cute cartons, try your hand at selling hatching eggs for profit at a greater income per dozen than selling eating eggs. After a few months of sales, the word-of-mouth referrals you receive will naturally increase without you having to do much additional advertising.
If you want to push your hatching egg selling enterprise, leave business cards with local natural markets that sell pastured eggs. They are often happy to refer customers looking for hatching eggs and may be interested in expanding their own flock. It is a good idea to have a picture of your actual eggs on the card, especially if you offer colored layers. PSPrint.com did a phenomenal job printing my double sided business cards. (Not an affiliate link. I just like them!)
If you need a little help with business card logos and design, message me on Etsy with a custom request. We'll have you selling hatching eggs for profit in no time!
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Source: https://silverhomestead.com/selling-hatching-eggs-for-profit/
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