How Do the Eggs You Eat Get To Your Table?

Obviously, the best way to get an understanding of what goes into making an egg would be to come and spend a day working with the chickens, doing the book-keeping, ect... However, a majority of you probably don't want to/don't have time to do that!

Starting everyday at about 8:30 a.m, I go out to the chicken barn(s) and load and mix feed for the day. Some day's feeding programs are different from others based on season and condition of the birds. The loading, mixing, and feeding usually takes about 10 minutes.
Shortly after feeding, the chickens' water pans are emptied and taken to be washed and scrubbed. Ideally, a nipple-watering system is in my sights for the future, which will eliminate the need for daily scrubbing and cleaning of the watering system. The nipple-water system is a closed watering system (meaning that the water is only accessible to the birds by the steel nipple. Only water comes out, and nothing goes into the water, thus keeping it clean and fresh throughout the day).

One of the fun parts of the day is when I let the chickens out. As soon as I open the door, there is a literal flood of chickens.

After letting the chickens out in the morning, I head on over to the barn to begin collecting eggs. Usually by the time I get to this point, there is only about a dozen eggs to collect. But, throughout the day (usually after 12:00 a.m, and about 3:00 p.m, and 6:00 p.m) eggs are laid and collected and taken to the storage/processing barn behind the chicken barn. As of right now, the eggs are packed into washable cartons to be taken inside and washed later in the day.
You can check out a (shortened) video here to watch the process of how a chicken lays an egg! It usually takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes from the time the chicken gets into a nest box, to the time she exits.

Between the times that eggs are collected, book-keeping, emailing, and record keeping happens in the office. After the eggs are collected and brought inside to be washed (usually 15-20 minutes total), they are sorted, packaged, and labelled. The egg total's, percent lay, feed consumption, and feed conversion is recorded each day in a book, and at the end of the week, everything is totaled up. Usually, about an hour everyday is spent doing the record keeping and emailing.

If you can see in the "feed" column, there are a lot of numbers and letters that all look smashed together. In the instance of this picture, this is March's production record.
At the beginning of March, approximately 19.80 lbs of NGM (non-GMO layer mix) plus two (2) scoops (@5 lbs each) of Corn and SWW (soft white wheat) were fed. Later on in March is where the annotations look a little more confusing. You can see "20+(2)SP316(1.90)." Okay, but what does that mean?
I always start with the amount of base feed (NGM). In this case, I was feeding 20 lbs of NGM, plus and additional (2)SP316(1.90).
That jumble of letters and numbers tells me how much of an extra feed mix, as well as its daily price, was fed that day. So, (2)SP316(1.90) tells me that two, 5 lb scoops of SpringPro316 (designates season to be fed, what it is high in [pro=protein], and the date it was created) were fed that day at a price of $1.90.
Creating separate codes for the different feed(s) makes it easier at the end of the week when I have to total everything up, and the format of the chart as a whole makes it easy to see if the feed is effective or not.

At the end of the day, the chickens go back into their barn to sleep. All I have to do is go close the door, which is nice, because trying to chase 120 chickens back into their barn is not an easy task. I am thankful that they have a "homing beacon" in that tiny bird-brain of theirs.
The reason why I can say that rounding up 120 chickens is not easy, is because (on a few occasions) wind has blown the main entrance to the chicken barn shut. A few times, the wind picked up and blew the door (and doorstop) closed before the chickens were going to turn in for the night. It also happened on a night when I came home late from fishing (I think, or maybe it was work). Well, to make things worse, it was also somewhat cold, and very muddy and raining. ALL of the chickens had been locked out of their house by the wind. By the time I made it outside, it was about 9:30 (in the winter), so I had to move (by hand) all 120 chickens into their barn, which took about 45 minutes. Anyway, there's a crazy story about bad weather and chickens:)

Every week, the weekly email(s) and newsletters are sent out, and at the end of the week, all the eggs get loaded up and are taken to be delivered to you, and eventually eaten!

That is the quick version of what happens on a daily basis here at the chicken farm! Everyday is different, but on average, it takes about 14-25 hours (or more, depending on the season) a week to keep everything on track and functioning.

As always, any questions or comments are always welcome!