By The Numbers - 2024 Egg Production

Last week we looked at the rainfall totals and trend from 2024.  I always find that to be interesting.  Tonight we'll look at the 2024 egg production totals.  As we do with rainfall, we keep daily logs of the number of eggs we pick up each day.  Yes, it is a paper log.  There's probably a more efficient way to do this.  Who knows?  There might be an app, but for now, we write down the number of eggs each day, total up by month and then by year.  I move all the information into an Excel worksheet.  We also add notes that remind us about eggs we put under a broody hen or when we move pullets back out into the pasture with the rest of the flock. 

We now have 12 years of data on how many eggs we've gathered.  We eat a bunch of them, give some to family members and sell the rest to people who appreciate free range, pastured hens that roam free and eat, primarily, what God provides them.  Things like bugs, worms, frogs, grass, garden scraps and leftovers sometimes.

The first thing you'll notice is that the number of eggs produced in 2024 on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm is down and down significantly.  In fact, it is the lowest year since we've been recording egg production.  To be specific, 1,508 eggs less than last year!  That is attributable to losing 39 hens to minks.  Even though we replaced some with hens that we raised from eggs incubated by broody hens, it wasn't enough to offset the ones lost in the bloodbath.

Let's look at a few things.  The month of March is still the highest production month.  This makes sense to me as it is springtime and fresh, lush green grass is abundant, as are bugs and worms.  More protein = more eggs.  The lowest was November.  That one is a little hard to figure out.  You can look to see how we measured up against the 12 year average.  

Let's look at the data in another format, broken up in totals by month and for the year and converted into dozens.

I looked up the information from last year where we had roughly 50 hens.  It is hard to be exact because we always lose a few here and there from predation and old-age.  With 33 hens, they laid about 155 eggs each.  Each day we picked up, on average a little more than a dozen eggs.  This year we hope to add a few birds to our flock.  We've had to take down our "Eggs for Sale" sign as we only have enough to sell to our regular customers.  I'd like to reintroduce some Barred Rock hens to the flock as the minks wiped out every last one of them.  As the days get longer and the food sources get more abundant, we'll see more eggs.