Sunday, February 15, 2015

E is for egg tracking: Eggspense review

Usually I just get a pen and put a few marks on my wall calendar to track how many eggs the girls lay each day, but I've long had it in the back of my mind to look into writing an app to do it.  Of course it's been done already!

I was after something that would record how many eggs we got each day so I could look at totals and patterns over the year, and maybe put in extra things that it would be nice to track, such as when I worm them (and be able to set reminders).

I'm notoriously cheap when it comes to buying software but I thought it would be nice to have something on my phone, so after a little bit of searching backyard chicken and egg forums, I decided to give eggspense a try, as it works on Android.  I think it only cost me a couple of dollars.  It doesn't allow me to put in reminders, but it does record the expenses of keeping chickens so you can work out how much it costs per egg!  This is a constant refrain of Mr Potter, who insists that the chickens aren't earning their keep.  Well of course not, they're pets as well as egg producers - the whippets certainly aren't a cost neutral exercise either!  But seriously, I've been a bit concerned about the egg quota lately - it seems to me that with 5 young chickens we should be getting more than 2 eggs per day on average in the laying season.  It's been a bit hot lately, and they do tend to lay a bit less when things are scorching, but overall its's been a mild summer and not unbearable like the summer before Rose was born.

So here's the first two weeks of egg tallying.   I haven't bought any feed lately, so there's nothing under expenses as yet.

The plot that I've shown here I've actually recoloured in Irfanview (best freebie imaging editor around for quick and dirty fixes and ease of use!). So here's my first bit of feedback for the developers: what's with the dark blue dots on black background for your charts?  And the tiny tiny font on the chart?

And I couldn't manage to share this chart directly with blogger, but it was easy enough to download and save, which I need to do so I could edit the colours!

On the plus side, the app's pretty easy to use, and I generally remember to put the egg numbers in straightaway as I'm rarely without my phone, which couldn't be said for the old method of writing it down on the calendar in my study.  It would be great to also be able to set reminders of things such as worming though, or just log other things of note, such as when they moult or when a broody hen might affect the egg numbers.

After six months or so, when I've averaged out the expenses over a decent length of time, I'll post an update on how much it really is costing me to produce eggs!

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