We have had two cases in the last few months when we privately received criticism, and in a rather rude way, about the prices of our eggs or chickens. Although this was completely unnecessary as we all have freedom of choice regarding what we buy and what we don’t buy, we would like to provide some information here about that. One may assume this is common knowledge, particularly amongst people who keep chickens, but it seems it is not. So here is some information that determines our prices:

Price of poultry feeds. This has been exorbitant in the last year, where we have witnessed a steep increase in prices of feeds across the board, and especially of high quality feeds or constituents of feed that we use.

Prices of other poultry essentials such as vitamins, mealworms and supplements. We don’t just keep poultry. We raise them in the most healthy way we can, providing them with a wide range of essentials to boost and maintain their health, especially under extreme conditions such as extreme heat or very wet or cold days.

Cost of infrastructure and maintenance. It’s very different having a few hens free ranging around your house and constructing and maintaining separate individual pens for each breed that we keep so we can offer purebreds. Imagine having to construct 20 pens. This involves thousands upon thousands of $$$. Imagine the cost of this, plus the cost, time and effort that goes into maintaining these pens on a daily basis. We spend countless hours cleaning chicken poop and sanitising pens; we spend countless hours ensuring every single day that each pen has clean water and unlimited food supply.

Cost and time of fertility tests. We offer top quality fertile eggs. Fertility rates of our eggs are nearing 100% throughout the year. To achieve that, we need to provide high quality care to our chickies, but also to conduct fertility and hatching tests. We don’t simply leave this to chance. We work very hard, around the clock, to ensure the product we offer is indeed a top quality product.

On the above bases, our prices are reflective of both the costs involved to keep and raise our flocks and the hard work that goes into ensuring we offer an exceptional product when it comes to our fertile eggs, and good healthy birds when it comes to our chicks and older chickens. We are not here to make a profit. We are here because we love chickens and all poultry, we love farm life and enjoy what we do, and we also enjoy interacting with you all and sharing what we love and enjoy. And that’s about it really.

With love,
Agia Skepi Team