# \[Possibly\] dumb question from a city boy about farming **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 6, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240 "2016-09-06T23:21:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/41 "2016-09-08T15:47:42Z")
Eggs are perishable, so farmers can’t just keep them in stock waiting for a price rise. If there’s an oversupply of eggs, plain old economics tells us that farmers will sell them at a loss, to at least get some money back rather than not selling them and getting nothing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/42 "2016-09-08T16:24:03Z")
Eggs are perishable, but they’re not nearly as perishable as most people think. Kept properly, they’ll be good for at least three or four months, and probably longer. So for farmers to sell them at a loss, there doesn’t just have to be a price slump; they have to reasonably believe that the slump will last for a while. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/43 "2016-09-08T16:45:17Z")
Actually, despite the “sell by” date on a carton of eggs, there’s a code stamped on the end of the carton telling you what month and day they were collected. Often, that’s well over a month ago. Sometimes, two or more. Eggs last a real long time. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/44 "2016-09-08T16:51:11Z")
Maintaining inventory also costs money. How long are you going to store those eggs before the cost of storage outweighs the money you can get by selling the eggs now. Plus if there’s really a glut, you might not have the storage capacity in the first place for all the eggs you have now plus all the eggs coming up the pipeline. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/45 "2016-09-08T17:29:54Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > So you have 100,000 hens producing 80,000 eggs/day… Good gawd, I hope they don’t put them all in one basket. mmm ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/46 "2016-09-08T17:46:26Z")
Ref my post from earlier this morning … Later today I stopped by Aldi’s and bought a dozen large eggs just so I could weigh them. They were $0.69 / dozen. On my properly tared digital scale the dozen eggs weigh 22.7 oz. Per USDA they ought to weigh 24 oz or more. That 1.3 oz = 5.4% shortfall seems a bit much. This dozen Aldi’s eggs looks and feels about like normal large eggs. Not nearly as small as the previous two dozen from my earlier post. The other day I bought 2 dozen jumbos at another non-Aldi’s store that’s also selling mostly own-label & odd-lot stuff at lower than normal prices. Jumbo was the only egg size they had. Those dozens weigh 29.2oz and 29.4oz on my same scale. USDA says jumbos ought to weight 30oz per dozen or greater. These come in just 2.5% low. That I could readily believe is my scale’s (lack of) calibration. My bottom line: I \*think \*Aldi’s was selling undersized eggs for at least a few days in at least a few locations. But boy were they cheap. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/47 "2016-09-08T18:41:35Z")
**LSLGuy** , happy to see someone is guarding the hen house. Get a certified, digital scale that you can calibrate, and lets go after those rascals! This is a biggie! Like the Subway’s 11.52 inch foot long. Let’s take em on! ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/48 "2016-09-08T19:36:06Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Maybe, but the total value of that chicken over its lifetime is probably higher, when you factor in the eggs it laid AND the carcass value once it’s done laying. > > And… if you’re in the business of making chicken stock, you WANT those old worn out birds. They make more flavorful stock than the young, meaty ones. We get them from a local farmer who sells eggs, and occasionally his scrawny, tough egg-layers when they’re done for, and they make stellar chicken stock and soup. Far better than a cheap fryer from the grocery store. I wonder what the carcass value is? Some Amish friends of ours bought some ex-battery hens for a dollar a piece, IIRC. If you’re going to take that into account, I think you need to also take into account the cost of raising the birds from chick to layer, which is going to be at least 4 weeks. That’s definitely going to cost more than a dollar in feed. I’m guessing they only keep the hens through the first molt (it takes about a month to recover from a molt, during which they stop laying, and they lay slightly less after the first molt), which would be at around 1 year old, so they get maybe 8 months of laying out of each hen. The margins do seem really thin. We have 10 chickens, who free range all day on pasture. In the summer, a 9 bag of chicken food lasts about a month. We get an average of 7 eggs a day, so if I'm doing my math right that works out to about .04/egg. Of course, this in no way resembles a commercial chicken operation. It’s much cuter, and the eggs taste much better. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/49 "2016-09-08T21:36:57Z")
> [@CC](#): > > Actually, despite the “sell by” date on a carton of eggs, there’s a code stamped on the end of the carton telling you what month and day they were collected. Often, that’s well over a month ago. Sometimes, two or more. Eggs last a real long time. My understanding is that grocery store eggs are almost always at least a month old. Deliberate aging causes them to lose some moisture through the shell, thus shrinking slightly. This makes hard-boiled eggs a bit easier to peel – truly fresh eggs are hard to peel when you boil them. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/50 "2016-09-08T21:43:04Z")
I’ve heard that too but I can’t imagine why they would do that. Why store eggs for a month before shipping? I don’t think egg producers are so benevolent as be looking out for people trying to peel boiled eggs. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/51 "2016-09-08T22:23:36Z")
If people have a hard time peeling the eggs from one grocery store, they’ll complain, or start buying their eggs elsewhere. I expect, though, that it’s just as likely that it’s because it’s cheaper to ship them slowly than quickly. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240/52 "2016-09-12T22:08:39Z")
And just this little refinement to what I had said above… specifically, the code on the end of the egg carton tells you what number day of the year the eggs were collected, and you have to figure out the actual month and date yourself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibly-dumb-question-from-a-city-boy-about-farming/765240.md?page=2)