chez
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No, 100%. It costs 60p to produce half a dozen eggs. I sell at £1.20. That's 100% markup.
The 60p includes feed, bedding etc and the cost of the birds spread over 104 weeks, at 220 eggs per year per bird and 4p per egg carton.
Obviously it doesn't include other overheads - capital expenditure, advertising, stall-hire, travel, insurance etc; so my *actual* profit isn't 100%, just initially, per box of eggs. Can't work the annual net profit out until I've done a whole year really. I expect it will be a great deal less!
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Oi, they don't. And they don't crap as much as bigger ones.
pookie
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My mother had a conniption fit when I suggested getting more than three ducks and it's her land. But I am working on it.
Since you mention it, though - what would you suggest as the best breed of laying duck? I have saxonys atm, which are good dual purpose - I have had an egg virtually every day between Valentine's Day and last week. But now they have stopped and are changing their clothes.
ETA: I hate call ducks, though. They have funny shaped heads. |
Khaki Campbells I believe are fab layers!
chez
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They are really like mallards, though. And I have Mallard Fear since we had four dozen of them shagging indiscriminately on the pond in the back garden during my childhood.
I quite fancy Indian Runners ... don't know how they lay, though. And they will remind Arvo of home, as they walk like Liverpudlians.
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Bebo
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And they will remind Arvo of home, as they walk like Liverpudlians. |
Like they've been shoplifting frozen chickens and smuggling them out in their trackie bottoms?
mochyn
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Runners are pretty good layers if you get a good strain. And they're a lot of fun. Can't fly either, but they're timid.
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Liz in Ireland
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| Quote: |
I shifted 45 dozen  . |
What did you do with them before??
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pookie
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They are really like mallards, though. And I have Mallard Fear since we had four dozen of them shagging indiscriminately on the pond in the back garden during my childhood.
I quite fancy Indian Runners ... don't know how they lay, though. And they will remind Arvo of home, as they walk like Liverpudlians. |
oh no I have that song in my head now......'walk like an Egyptian' 
chez
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What did you do with them before?? |
I 'topped up' my own with some from a local free-range friend. I cleared it with the market first - I didn't want to invest in pullets unless it was going to fly, and it looks like it will. Hence the leghorn order
ETA: Bebo - EXACTLY like that
How good is 'pretty good' Mochyn?
Bodger
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Khaki Campbells are the very best but if you don't like them, then consider White Campbells. I've recently set myself up with some. They are fantastic birds. Photos tomorrow. 
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chez
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Oh gosh. That's getting in to my 'fear of white poultry' area, too  I'll end up keeping Ixworths at this rate
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Ollie
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Runners are pretty good layers if you get a good strain. And they're a lot of fun. Can't fly either, but they're timid. |
Three of our seven ducks are runners and they're the least timid (the others are buff orpingtons and blue swedish, two of each). However, I certainly agree that they're a lot of fun---they always want to know what's going on and look pleasingly silly when they run.
Of the six females (one of the blue swedish is male) we're pretty sure that one does not lay at all and we average 4 eggs a day. I don't know how this compares to other breeds.
Bodger
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Within the last couple of months we've gone from 0 to 12 ducks and touch wood, everything is going swimmingly. Yesterday, my son and his girlfriend bought them a childs paddling pool for the princely sum of £1.50p and they, thats the ducks, had a fantastic time.
We have five White Campbells and seven Indian Runners of various colours. If you listen to what people say, then the Runners here in the UK are not the birds they once were. This is due to the fact that for many years now, they have been bred with showing, rather than utility in mind. The Runners that Ollie has in the States would probably knock the spots off ours in the laying department.
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mochyn
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I've found Runners to be second only to Campbells for laying. I got my first Runners from Chris Ashton near here (she wrote The Domestic Duck).
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Mistress Rose
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Glad you are doing well at the market. We started Farmers Markets with a town one, but as we sell wood products it is rather an optional extra for most people, and we didn't do very well. We have now gone onto the Hampshire Farmers Markets, and find them better, although we don't make anything like as much as the food producers. It does bring in orders for firewood, outlets for charcoal, and a few other things though, so worthwhile on the whole.
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glad its working out