Yesterday we looked at rainfall. We had less rainfall in 2023 than we did in 2022 or any year since we began tracking. Eggs were a different story. We had MORE eggs in 2023 than we did in 2022. This is mainly because we hatched out two batches of chicks that we raised. We butchered all the roosters, except for two. The pullets finally began laying. Simple math. If you have more birds, you're gonna collect more eggs. But toward the end of the year, the minks began to take a toll on the older chickens, killing what we estimate to be 40-something birds. Egg production took a hit toward the end of the year, for sure.
Let's look at the eleven year trend in the trendline below. In 2023, we collected 6,615 eggs. What do we do with all those eggs? We eat a BUNCH! We give some away. We sell some, too. Our biggest month on egg production during 2023 was March and the lowest month was January. Over the 11 year period, we averaged 8,053 eggs per year. The biggest egg production month was May and the lowest was December.
Here is another little table below that breaks down egg production by month and converts to dozen. Below that, it gives some fun data.
So we're picking up an average of 18 eggs per day. A bird will lay an egg once every 2.76 days. If we kept our chickens confined in a barn on a high protein diet with lights on all the time, we could boost those numbers up significantly. The mink problem tempts me to do that! But then they wouldn't be natural eggs. We like the free ranging, pastured birds. We intend on hatching out some additional chicks this spring to replenish the flock to replace the ones killed by predators.
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