OCR Text |
Show Poultrymen of Illinois Find the Cost of Eggs Eggs, of which Illinois farmers were producing almost 137,000,000 dozens annually in the last census year, were produced at an average cost of 13V2 cents a dozen in 1932 on a group of record-keeping poultry poul-try farms In this state, according to figures announced by R. M. Wilcox, Wil-cox, of the department of agricultural agricul-tural economics, College of Agriculture, Agricul-ture, University of Illinois. At this rate the farmers' bill on the annual production reported in the last census cen-sus would have been more than $18,000,000. While this was the average cost for a relatively large group of poultrymen in the state, some of the flock owners in the group kept their costs down as low as 6 or 7 cents a dozen. The low cost on all these farms was the result, mainly, of the very low prices of feeds during dur-ing the past year. Higher feed prices will make costs much higher in 1933. The average cost of rearing a pullet on these poultry farms was 46 cents, but here again individual poultrymen using better management manage-ment kept their pullet-raising costs below 30 cents. Another group of men not specializing spe-cializing in poultry production but using their flocks as a source of income along with other farm enterprises en-terprises kept cost records on their poultry along with their Illinois farm account book records. The cost of producing eggs on these farms was 0.6 cents a dozen. |