2021 Egg Production - By the Numbers

Let's finish up our look at Egg Production for the year of 2021 before it is time to show totals for 2022, shall we?  We are a small homestead farm that operates on the "Blue Bell ice cream" principle.  We eat all we can and sell (and give away) the rest.  We do eat a lot of eggs.  Each afternoon around 4 - 5 pm, we do our evening chores.  One of those tasks is collecting eggs from the nesting boxes and also searching around favorite nesting hiding places where rogue hens like to secretly lay their eggs.

We collect the eggs in a wire basket like below:

We bring the eggs back to the house and package them in egg cartons.  We very seldom have to purchase egg cartons because people bring empty cartons to us.  Upon going into the house, we record the number of eggs collected.  We have nine years of history, but have had laying hens for longer than that.  In 2013, we started tracking egg production and I'm glad we did.  It's interesting to see the history and observe seasonal trends.

Here is the cumulative record:

A couple of interesting observations.  First, March repeated its 2020 trend of being the month with the most egg production.  In March the spring grass is lush and there are more bugs and worms for eating.  The temperature is perfect.  A happy, unstressed hen lays more eggs.  November was our month with the fewest egg production.  The days are beginning to be shorter and foraged bugs, worms, grass is not as easy to get.

In our Nine Year history, you can see that overall April is our biggest production month and December our lowest.  Overall, we average 8,420 eggs per year or 702 dozen.  Amazing to think that on our little farm our hens have produced 75,784 eggs, or 6,315 dozen.  Of course that all depends on how many hens you have, their age, and a dozen other variables.  You can see that data below:

We had about 45 birds in 2021.  We have lost a lot of birds over the last year due to predation.  I've caught a lot of possums, but there are always hawks and owls on patrol.  You can't legally trap or shoot those.  Belle, our livestock guardian dog, needs to step up her game!  We average picking up 12 eggs per day.  The annual eggs per bird is 123.  That figure is WAY below the production for the type of hens we have (Rhode Island Red, Barred Rock, Aracauna).  They appear to lay an egg every 3 days.

We just purchased 15 birds from a neighbor to replace those lost to predators.  These hens are 1 year old and are a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a White Leghorn.  They lay brown eggs and are prolific.  They are supposed to lay between 250-300 eggs per year.  We'll see...