Eggsellent Venture
On a warm Wednesday morning, David Dantzler pulls out a couple of pages of meticulously written charts that detail just how many eggs his 36 chickens have produced.
For about nine months now, David, 13, has commanded the clucking crowd, selling their eggs as part of his own in-home business.
Later, as he reaches in to extract one of the brown-speckled bundles from beneath one of his flock in the gloom of the family’s chicken house, where the birds are tucked in safely at night, he displays his still-warm prize proudly.
So far, he hasn’t become rich. Expenses — about $50 a month — often eat into his profits. The family also keeps about two dozen of the eggs a week for themselves.
But even if his venture hasn’t turned to pure gold (at $3 a dozen), he said he’s having fun working with, and learning about, the animals under his care.
And the 13-year-old has had to learn plenty of grown-up lessons about running a small business — supply and demand, the effects of the seasonal demand and production, and just how much a hungry brood of hens can eat.
Photo by Reporter-News.
Jaclyn Wells on August 24th, 2009 3:54 pm
Maybe if he were to sell his eggs for a little cheaper, then more people would come to buy them and thus he would make more of a profit. I mean, you can get a dozen extra large or jumbo eggs at the grocery store for under $3 a dozen.
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