Is there a new egg shortage?

[John K Jordan]

" . . . or you overeat because you feel you need to eat the food you paid for. . . "

THIS is the genius behind Sams Club & COSTCO. I heard this discussed by marketing experts on a radio program. They figured out that if you sell bacon in five pound packages, people will cook and eat more of it at one time. All about taking advantage of human nature.

We often buy oversized meat packages at Sam's. Cut them into reasonable meal-sized pieces and wrap and freeze.

JKJ

[Ken Fitzgerald]

We buy bulk quantities at Costco and repackage with a vacuum sealer.

[Ronald Blue]

Haven't been to the store here for a few days but haven't heard of any egg shortages. My parents always had chickens. The light was on around the clock in the hen house. The only heat lamp used was in the brooder house for the little chicks each spring. Just regular light bulbs in the hen house. It gets cold here and chickens ae surprisingly hardy. If there was a shortage of eggs in the store we have some farm sources available too.

[Pete Costa]

Haven't been to the store here for a few days but haven't heard of any egg shortages. My parents always had chickens. The light was on around the clock in the hen house. The only heat lamp used was in the brooder house for the little chicks each spring. Just regular light bulbs in the hen house. It gets cold here and chickens ae surprisingly hardy. If there was a shortage of eggs in the store we have some farm sources available too.

If you use heat lamps, make sure they are securely mounted and protected! Ours wasn't and we had an unintentional chicken BBQ. Thankfully the coop is not near the house. The fire chief who responded said it was the third chicken coop fire that month. Our new birds are in their new house with just a water heater and this https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/pr...SABEgKp2_D_BwE

Thr birds have been good so far in some subzero temps. We have a light on a timer and they've been decent producers.

[John K Jordan]

If you use heat lamps, make sure they are securely mounted and protected! ...

This is true. The chickens (and other birds) when moving around can get caught up in or try to land on any unsecured power cords in the space. I usually bring in the power and mount the brooder lamp up at the ceiling but if low in the building I mount it securely to a wall and secure the wire tight to the wall. I bring in power at the very top. Better to wire permanently with conduit but tend I change things around a lot.

Hey, if anyone is looking for a simple way to house birds. something quick to put up, my favorite cages for peacocks and such are 6' high 10x10' "dog" kennels made from chainlink panels. I usually put two together with a separating panel with a door for flexibility. Each 10x10 has a 6' and 4' panel on the top as a "ceiling" to keep the birds in and the varmints out. An "A" frame covered with tarps keeps most of it dry. I put cloth panels on the sides in the winter as protection from wind and move them in the summer for shade. Gravel on the ground, a stall mat inside for the feed and water. Sawhorses with 2x4s across for a roost. Goes up quickly, easy to take down or move if necessary. Practically fireproof!

A pair of these can house a lot of birds or with the separating door open give a few a lot of room for moving around (and breeding). Here's one I put up a few months ago, not yet fully occupied.

cages_new.jpg

My chickens have a real building but the cages are great for raising birds from half-grown to adult. I don't use the heat lamps with the adults or chicks with mothers - they have no problem with the coldest weather, at least in this part of the country. But all the birds (and dogs, donkeys, and llamas/alpacas) have heated water. No wonder my electric bill is high!

peacocks_for_sale1.jpg

I like that heater idea for young getting too big for the brooders - I suspect my barn cats would like one too. I need to go shopping.

JKJ

[Brian Elfert]

I went to a regular grocery store last night and the egg section looked normal. I also stopped at Walmart, but I forgot to see if they had eggs or not.

[Nathan Johnson]

My Walmart had eggs today.

[Alex Zeller]

We buy bulk quantities at Costco and repackage with a vacuum sealer.

I just wish the bags weren't so expensive.

I rarely shop at Costco as I would throw out too much stuff. It's too bad as they have some really good food but most of their food in bulk is too much for the wife and I. Buying it at the local store actually saves us money. I bet a lot of Costco shoppers have a freezer full of stuff they will never eat yet gladly return to "save" money.

[Alex Zeller]

...But all the birds (and dogs, donkeys, and llamas/alpacas) have heated water. No wonder my electric bill is high!
JKJ

I have a funny story that just popped into my head. Years ago a coworker was telling me about a problem he was having. His wife and son complained that they were getting an electrical shock when opening the steel gate attached to his barn. He just dismissed it. After about 6 months and the cold weather arriving he put a heater in the water trough for his beef. He said a big bull came over, stuck his tongue in the water and dropped to his knees like he had been shot. Once he got back to his feet he went to the far side of the pasture and would go close to the barn.

That's when he realized he had a problem. Not when his wife was getting electrocuted, not when his son was being zapped, but when the bull got it. He's kind of a cheap guy and when he built his barn about 20 years ago he used a glass screw in fuse panel because he had a lifetime supply of the fuses. He finally found his problem, well sort of. When installing the wire he drove one of the staples too hard and the hot wire was shorted to the ground wire. So anything that was grounded in his barn had power on it.

He's a nice guy and even after he retired we still see each other but electrical wiring is not his strong point. When i told him he had a much bigger problem he just didn't understand. There's no way a hot wire should be able to tough a ground wire and not trip a breaker or blow a fuse. But this is a guy who was convinced that he had a bad batch of CFLs because he would screw them in and in no time they would die. Turns out that he wired the lights with 240v, not 120v. It only took 6 bulbs before he realized his mistake.

[Jim Koepke]

We buy bulk quantities at Costco and repackage with a vacuum sealer.

I just wish the bags weren't so expensive.

I rarely shop at Costco as I would throw out too much stuff. It's too bad as they have some really good food but most of their food in bulk is too much for the wife and I. Buying it at the local store actually saves us money. I bet a lot of Costco shoppers have a freezer full of stuff they will never eat yet gladly return to "save" money.

How expensive are the bags?

We do not use a vacuum sealer. We purchase freezer bags at Costco and use those for storage.

An important part of buying at Costco to save is to plan ahead. Many people purchase something at a low price thinking, "that sounds good." Then it sits on a shelf forever because it didn't sound good enough to plan on using it.

My mother taught me to plan the first meal for a main item and plan ahead for using the leftovers. A large roast makes a nice meal, sandwiches the next day or two and then finally a stew of the meat and any leftover vegetables.

Yes, we do have a freezer. We recently purchased a used twenty cubic foot model as a replacement for our old one that developed problems.

We do not purchase five pound packs of bacon because we do not want to package it into separate one pound packs. We might not use five pounds in a year. A big pack of sausage might be a different story. It is packed in four separate packages that can be cut apart. One pack is good for a week of breakfast for me. Another pack for a pot of spaghetti or chili. They get used before they go bad.

Costco also has the lowest price on my favorite salsa. There is a Winco near by that is usually within a quarter to half dollar in price on a half gallon when we don't want to take the drive to Costco.

Buyers should also pay attention to prices. There are many items at Costco priced above what other retailers charge. Kirkland (Costo's house brand) Garlic Powder is a good deal and we always use it all before it goes bad. Some of Costco's meats are USDA Prime which will cost more than other retailer's USDA Choice.

It is a good idea to have something to eat before shopping at Costco or any grocery store. It will cut down on the impulse buying of all the good looking food.

The one thing that often bugs me about Costco is they have a buying contract with their suppliers. At one time between contracts they stopped selling my wife's favorite peanut butter. My taste in peanut butter isn't as picky but we don't need multiple brands of peanut butter in the house.

Most recently they stopped selling large bags of my favorite steel cut oats. Hopefully it will come back sometime soon.

jtk

[John M Wilson]

I just wish the bags weren't so expensive.

Buy a roll of the bag material -- quite a bit cheaper. It's not as convenient, because you have to seal both ends, but it's much more economical.

Here's a link to Amazon for what I buy, but there are a lot of different offers out there...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CQ8IXIK

We use ours quite a bit by buying bulk meat (especially chicken) at Sam's and then re-bagging them into portions for two.

Good luck!

[Brian Elfert]

I went to Walmart again yesterday and plenty of eggs to be had. I wouldn't have thought it strange when they had no eggs a while back except they had posted signs saying there was an egg shortage.

(I tend to shop for groceries fairly often. I stopped at Walmart since I was going to Home Depot anyhow.)

[Ronald Blue]

If you use heat lamps, make sure they are securely mounted and protected!

Well aware of the dangers of a heat lamp that is either to close to a surface or falls. My parents never had anything like that happen. Those were the good old days. They are both gone now and I think it was probably in the 90's when they had the last of their chickens. All memories now. I think in the winter the eggs were gathered at least twice per day to prevent freezing.