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.

By The Numbers - Rainfall 2024

We keep detailed records so that we can compare year over year.  It's probably a lot of trouble for nothing, but we do it anyway.  I find it is interesting to see changes.  It is instructive to see trends.  For instance which months are the driest and which are the wettest.  We live in an agricultural area and have agricultural interests.  One of the first things that farmers will tell you is that you need soil, sunlight and water in order to grow crops.

We try to grow a large percentage of our food on our little 5 acres of land, so rainfall matters - too much of it as well as too little of it.  I like the "Goldilocks and the 3 bears approach" to rainfall.  Not a flood, not a drought, but JUST RIGHT.  Keeping daily records that you compile helps you to know where you are.  

We collect lots of rainwater in numerous barrels and troughs that we have positioned beneath rooflines in order to sequester precipitation.  With a 1 inch rainfall, we can catch hundreds of gallons of water for the animals to drink and for us to use in irrigating the garden.  In a year like last year, though, rain barrels are useless if the wet stuff doesn't fall from the sky.  We've thought about learning how (from You Tube) to drill our own shallow well.  I tabled that idea but haven't forgotten about it and put it on the shelf.

Let's first look at the 2024 numbers.  This table shows rainfall by month and in total from summarizing and accumulating all my "ciphering."

But what does it mean, you might ask?  It means that we got a hair over 63 inches of rainfall in 2024, but that doesn't really tell you anything without looking at the trend.  I've added my 12 year trend below:

Now this tells you something!  First, it tells you that we rebounded from 2023 which was the lowest amount of rain in 11 years we've been recording and lower by almost a foot than the previous driest year.  It tells you that in 2024, February was the driest month and May was the wettest.  Normally March is the driest.  It tells you that we have a 12 year average annual rainfall of almost 64 inches.  In 2024, we pretty much hit the average on the nose.  The trend really highlights what an aberration 2023 was!

If you look up at my handwritten rainfall log, the detail shows you a metric that I call the "Best day to go on a picnic" statistic.  You'll see that it never rained on the 20th of any month last year.  Thus, a perfect picnic day!  So far in 2025, the streak is still alive.  It didn't rain on January 20th.

Visit the blog next when we'll look at Egg Production in 2024.

2017 Egg Production - By The Numbers

We try to keep accurate records around Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Good record-keeping helps to spot trends, good management ideas (things that went well), bad management ideas (experiments that didn't work), and just gives us benchmarks so that we can compare year to year to see how we are doing.  It is kind of like a scoreboard.  Today we'll look at the scoreboard for the hens to see how they are doing.

In looking at the statistics above, you can immediately spot a trend from month to month.  The season peaks out in early spring when the weather is nice, sunshine is plentiful, and tender plants and insects to eat are in abundance.  The eggs dwindle to nothing in the gloomiest, coldest, darkest months.  There is also a dip in egg production in the hottest months of the summer, followed by a brief rebound in early fall.

We have about 100 hens.  According to our records, in 2017 they averaged almost 100 eggs per hen.  This is really not great production, average production for the breeds of hens we have is more like 200 eggs per bird per year.  This can easily be explained.  For most of the year we didn't feed them a high protein diet.  We fed them rough and milled rice.  If I remember correctly, that provides about 12% protein.  For part of the year (beginning in the fall and winter) we did incorporate hen scratch and laying pellets that provides 17% protein.  Additionally, our hens are getting old.  As they get old, their laying slows down.

Below is a comparison table that we compile that compares egg production year over year.  The variable is the number of hens.  That differs from year to year, but I would estimate that the number of hens doesn't fluctuate by more than 10% each year.

This table shows egg production by year, by month, in total and then converted to dozens.  You can see that 2014 was the best year!  In the 5 year trend you can spot that Dec-Jan are the lowest egg production month each year and that April is the best month for egg production.

There are several things we could do to increase egg production.  We could keep lights on them all the time.  We could consistently feed them a higher protein ration.  We could get rid of all of our older birds and start with a brand new, younger flock, keeping the hens for two years before rotating out.  We could get rid of the Aracaunas (hens that lay blue and green eggs) and replace with Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks or perhaps get some white leghorns.

While we could do some of the practices mentioned above to increase egg production, we probably won't.  Why?  We currently have plenty of fresh, farm eggs to eat, to sell, and to give away at church.  We love having free range chickens.  They provide delicious, healthy eggs for us to eat and they walk around and fertilize our pasture.  They are "eggstrodinary" creatures!