How Much to Charge for Farm Eggs: Cost per Dozen, Worked

October 27, 2026 · Selling products and running the numbers

To work out how much to charge for farm eggs, add up what one dozen costs you - feed, replacing hens, supplies, the carton and your own time - and then set the price at the margin you want: price = full cost per dozen / (1 - margin). In the illustrative example below a dozen costs $5.10 once the owner’s time is paid, so a 25% margin needs $6.80 a dozen, or $3.53 for a half dozen in its own carton.

None of these figures are what eggs sell for, what feed costs or how many eggs a hen lays. They belong to one made-up flock of 30 laying hens and 4 retired ones, and each is there to be replaced with your own receipts and your own counts. Nothing here covers how eggs must be handled, graded, labeled or sold; those rules vary, so check your state’s rules.

The egg price formula

feed per dozen      = hens x feed per hen per day x feed price per lb
                      / dozens collected per day
upkeep per dozen    = (replacement hens per month + retired hens' feed)
                      / dozens per month
full cost per dozen = feed + upkeep + supplies + carton + your time
price at a margin   = full cost per dozen / (1 - margin)

Step 1: the feed in a dozen

The example’s 30 hens eat 0.25 lb each a day, 7.5 lb in all, from $20.00 bags of 50 lb: $0.40 a pound, or $3.00 a day. They lay 24 eggs a day, which is 2 dozen, so the feed in a dozen costs $1.50. Weigh what your own flock eats over a week and count the eggs over the same week; both numbers move this line directly.

Step 2: replacing hens and feeding retired ones

Hens stop laying, and the eggs have to pay for the next ones. At $25.00 a replacement hen laying for 36 months, replacing 30 hens costs $20.83 a month. Feeding 4 retired hens that still eat but no longer lay costs another $12.00. Spread over 60 dozen a month, that adds $0.55 a dozen. If you keep no retired hens, that part is zero.

Step 3: the full cost per dozen

The cash cost is $2.60 a dozen. The owner’s 20 minutes a day of collecting, cleaning and packing, at $15.00 an hour, add $2.50: the largest single line and nearly as much as all the cash costs together, at 49% of the full cost. A price built on the cash cost alone pays for the feed and the cartons but not for you.

Step 4: how to price eggs at a margin

Margin is profit as a share of the price, so the price at a margin is the cost divided by (1 - margin). A 25% margin is the same as a 33.3% markup on cost; the markup vs margin chart converts any pair.

A half dozen carries half the eggs’ cost - the full cost less the dozen carton, halved - plus its own $0.25 carton. The example’s $7.00 a dozen clears the target at a margin of 27.1%, and its $4.00 half dozen clears it too. Because the owner’s pay is already in the cost, the $1.90 a dozen is profit on top of that pay, before any selling costs.

How much to charge for duck eggs

Ducks get their own sheet, because their feed, their eggs and the time they take are their own. The example’s 6 ducks eat 0.4 lb each a day at $0.40 a pound and lay 4 eggs a day between them, 10 dozen a month. With $10.00 a month of other duck costs, 5 minutes a day of the owner’s time and a carton per dozen, the month costs $79.30: $7.93 a dozen.

Held to the same 25% margin, a duck dozen needs $10.57, a premium of 55.5% over the hen dozen. The example’s own $10.00 still makes $2.07 a dozen on top of the owner’s pay, but it falls short of the margin.

How much to charge for hatching eggs

A dozen sold for hatching is a dozen not sold to eat, so the hatching price has to beat the table dozen’s $1.90 profit, not just its cost. The example keeps roosters only for fertile eggs at $6.00 a month, sells 4 hatching dozens a month, and spends 15 extra minutes and $1.50 of extra packing on each.

Below $13.75 a dozen, selling the same eggs to eat earns more. At the example’s $18.00, a hatching dozen makes $6.15, $4.25 more than as table eggs and $17.00 more a month. Postage is not in these figures, and nothing here says anything about fertility or hatch rates.

The insight: the price is not the profit

Two things decide whether a fair-looking price pays: how you sell and when the hens slow down.

How you sell. Each month the example sells 40 dozen from a farm stand at $7.00, with 5% of the eggs taken but not paid for, $8.00 a month of sign, cooler and ice, and 120 minutes of restocking. It also makes 4 delivery runs a month of 4 dozen each at $7.50 a dozen, every run a 12 mile round trip at its own $0.60 a mile and 40 minutes of the owner’s time. Together with the 4 hatching dozens, that is the whole 60 dozen a month.

The delivery dozen sells for more and still loses $1.90 a dozen, $30.40 a month, because each run costs $17.20 and each dozen leaves only $2.40 over its cost to pay for it. It takes 8 dozen a run before a run pays for itself, against the 4 it carries. The stand makes $0.60 a dozen. Collecting and packing time is already in the $5.10 and is not counted twice.

When laying slumps. Feed, upkeep, supplies and the daily rounds do not fall when the flock lays less: in the example they stay at $287.83 a month. If laying drops from 24 to 12 eggs a day, a dozen costs $9.89, more than the $7.00 it sells for, and the month loses $86.83. At $7.00 the flock breaks even at 17.18 eggs a day. A price set in full lay is a full-lay price; check it against your own slump count before the slump arrives.

How these were calculated

Feed per dozen is hens x pounds per hen per day x (bag price / pounds per bag) / (eggs per day / 12). Upkeep per dozen is (hens x replacement hen cost / months laying + retired hens x feed per hen x price per pound x days) / dozens per month. Full cost adds supplies / dozens per month, the carton and minutes per day x days / 60 x hourly pay / dozens per month. Price at a margin is cost / (1 - margin). A half dozen is (full cost - carton) / 2 plus its own carton. Duck eggs are costed from the ducks’ own feed, other costs, time and cartons only. A hatching dozen is the table dozen’s full cost plus rooster keep per hatching dozen, extra packing and extra time; it beats table eggs above that cost plus the table dozen’s profit. Channel profit is dozens x (price received - full cost) less the channel’s own costs, with unpaid stand eggs costed but earning nothing. The slump month holds every cost at its full-lay level. Figures are carried from step to step as the spreadsheet shows them, to the cent.

Every figure was computed twice, once by the code behind the product below and once by an independent program that costs feed per egg, totals the month before dividing, compares hatching month against month and builds each channel a dozen at a time, and the two agree. All inputs are illustrative, not measured feed rates, laying rates or market prices. None of this is financial, legal or tax advice.

To run this on your own flock, feed bill and selling channels, the pack below has eight linked calculators, from feed per dozen to the laying rate at which the flock stops paying.