What does a dozen of your eggs actually cost?
Your flock, your feed bag, your real weekly count — into a cost per dozen you can stand behind at the farm gate. The consumption assumption is named and yours to correct. Everything stays in your browser.
The flock
The money
The standing order
The numbers here are yours to check. This page does arithmetic on what you type — it cannot see your recipe, your equipment or your batch.
For anything you will eat or sell as food, double-check it against your own process and your local rules. This page does maths, not food safety.
Want it to remember?
In MadeKeeper the feed bags are expenses, the dozens are inventory, and market day shows whether the farm-gate price actually covered the winter — the was-it-worth-it math your envelope can't hold. See for egg sellers or poke around the live demo. $19/mo for the whole back office, kept for as long as you stay. The shop stays free for cost a piece and one fair — no product cap. The tax packet, Etsy and Square, and more fairs are the $19.
The envelope math, the week feed hits $25
Every flock keeper does this on an envelope the week feed jumps. The math below is the same math the calculator runs — feed to dozens, honestly divided — with the assumptions named where an envelope would hide them.
How much feed does a hen actually eat?
A quarter pound a day is the standard estimate, and it is an estimate — heavy breeds eat more, free-ranging birds eat less bagged feed in summer and more in winter, and waste from a badly designed feeder can add a real fraction. That is why the number is an input with the convention as its default: weigh a week of your own feed once and the answer becomes yours instead of the internet's.
Why did my cost per dozen triple in winter?
Because the hens kept eating and stopped laying. The feed bill barely moves through a molt or short days, while the weekly count can fall by two-thirds — and since the cost divides over the eggs that actually arrived, each one carries more. It is the honest arithmetic behind $5 winter eggs, and it is why this page asks for your real weekly count instead of a lay-rate average that smooths the pain away.
Should the cost of the birds themselves be in here?
It is a fair argument either way, which is why this page leaves it to the weekly-extras line rather than deciding. A $5 chick that lays for two years adds pennies a dozen; a $25 started pullet replaced annually adds real money. Put your amortization in the extras if you want it counted — or leave it out and know your dozen is priced on operating cost alone.
Can I sell my eggs?
Almost certainly, within rules — and the rules are your state's to state, not this page's. Egg sales are regulated nearly everywhere: licensing thresholds, grading, carton labeling, whether reused cartons are allowed. Your extension office or market manager knows your county's answer in one phone call. This page does the cost math; the compliance homework is real and it is yours.