Downloaded, printed and spread on the kitchen table. Nine files and the Calculator.
For anyone who loves their hens and has quietly started to wonder what the bag is costing
For Five Years I Could Not Have Told You
What My Hens Were Actually Costing Me.
Then one January I sat down with a feed receipt and six numbers off my own place, and it took ten minutes. I have not looked at a feed bag the same way since.
What fixed it was five things I already had: a jar, a tray, a pot, a bed under wire, and a bin. Nothing bought. Nothing clever. The hens never knew the difference. A third off the year, dark months left in and counted against me.
148 pages · 18 chapters · 5 levers · 9 files you print, plus the Calculator
Levi Lapp · keeps thirty-some hens
Written at the kitchen table, September 2026
Nobody in That Aisle
Is Going to Tell You What Your Hens Cost.
The bag tells you three things, and I have read them a hundred times: protein, weight, price. Sixteen percent. Fifty pounds. Whatever your store charged you last time.
It will never tell you the fourth. Not on the bag, not on the shelf, not from the man at the till.
What it costs you to keep one hen, for one week. Nobody in that aisle is paid to work it out, so most of us never do.
So here is mine, off that receipt, the evening I finally did the sum I had been avoiding.
A dollar and eight cents a hen, every week. I had kept hens five years and I had never once worked it out. I am not ashamed of much, but I was ashamed of that.
I am not against the feed store. I am against not knowing the number.
I did something about it, and it worked better than I expected. But first you ought to know who is talking.
I Am Not the Man Who Never Bought Feed.
That Was My Grandfather.
My name is Levi Lapp. I keep thirty-some hens, and I buy feed, just less of it than I used to.
I am not Amish. My grandfather was, and I spent my summers on his place. I say it plainly because you will hear the accent in how I write and wonder.
We called him Dawdi. He kept thirty-odd hens for forty years and never bought a bag of feed.
He had a mixed farm’s stubble and the habit of writing everything down. I have the ledger and none of the land, so I do the arithmetic instead, and that is the whole of what this binder is.
Which leaves the five things that actually did the work, starting with the one already sitting in your kitchen.
You Have Probably Tried Some of These.
I Tried Four of the Five, and Kept Paying.
- Switch to the cheaper bag. Saves two or three dollars and costs you protein. You did not save anything, you moved it.
- Pour on more scratch. Scratch is mostly corn — heat, not protein. Past a treat, you are diluting the feed you just paid for.
- Buy a supplement for the laying. If the eggs dropped because the daylight dropped, there is nothing in any tub that will change it.
- Free-range them more. Helps in June. Does very little in January, which is the month the bill actually hurts.
- Buy another tracker. Counting eggs is not the problem. Nobody sells you the cost side, and the cost side is the one that moves.
Not one of them is stupid. I have done four of the five. Not one of them starts by measuring anything. So what does?
So What Goes in the Pan Instead?
A Jar, a Tray, a Pot, a Bed and a Bin.
The first one costs nothing and it is sitting in your kitchen right now.
Same feed, same hens. It swells, it softens, and they waste less. Fermenting stretches a bag twenty to thirty percent, and no further. That ceiling is printed in the chapter.
A good jar smells like sourdough. A sharp one has turned: dump it, scald it, start again.
In February there is nothing green for a hen anywhere, and that is exactly when the bag bleeds you.
A pound of dry grain and four days of rinsing. The hens eat something green in February, which is exactly when the bag costs you the most.
A pot on the stove turns what you would not eat into what they will.
Peas, scraps and the odd surplus egg, cooked and cooled. Cheap, and they like it. This is the one that caught me.
My first winter I made that pot mostly rice, because rice was cheap. Rice is two and a half percent protein — I had built a quarter of their day out of almost nothing, and the eggs went down. A quarter of the day is right; what I put in it was not. It carries the least of the five, and the Guide prints how little.
The growing bed and the bug bin are the two that cost money.
The bed grows under a wire lid the hens graze but cannot scratch out. The bin turns what is already rotting on your place into protein. They run May to September and carry the summer half.
About $90 to build, once. Rotting wood and leaf litter go in. Never meat, never the compost heap.
That is the whole mechanism, and there is nothing clever in it.
The Guide prints the protein floor each lever has to hold: sixteen percent as fed, eighteen through the molt. It prints the ceiling past which a lever stops being safe.
What it will not do is beat short daylight, and nor will anything else you put in front of a hen.
And no, it does not run on your kitchen scraps. A family of four does not throw out enough to feed a dozen hens. Mine never did.
Which left one question worth a year of writing things down: what does all that actually save?
I Wrote Down Every Month.
Including the Ones That Shamed Me.
The month I finally added up the year, I sat at this table for a long while and did not say anything.
$672 if nothing had changed. $444 the way it went. That is $228 back.
About a third. Not half, because the four dark months are in that figure, pulling it down, and taking them out would have made a prettier number and a dishonest one.
The bed and the bin cost about $90 to build, once. I keep it on its own line rather than hide it inside the saving, so the honest first year is $138.
You do not spend that $90 again, and the second year keeps the whole $228.
This is the worked twelve-hen example the Guide is built on. My prices, my flock, my winter, month by month. It is arithmetic, not a testimonial. Your bag price and your daylight go into the same sheet and give you your own twelve numbers.
Then November came and took some of it back, and I am going to show you that too.
November was $43. December, $44. I left both in the year, which is why it says a third and not a half. Anyone whose winter bill is a third of their summer one is lighting the coop, or not counting.
Here is the whole promise, in writing, including the part that is not flattering.
- About a sixth off in the first thirty days. Mine was sixteen percent, and I started in January with every scoop bought at retail. Start in April and the same thirty days read nearer a fifth.
- Half in June, July and August, when the bed and the bin are running hard. May and September either side of them, nearer forty percent.
- About a third across a whole year, dark months left in and counted against me.
- That is one twelve-hen flock at my prices. Yours will not be mine, and the sheets are built to find yours.
Nine files, $27 today, going to $47.
The whole of what you have just read, printed and by the bin tonight. Fourteen days to change your mind.
Send Me the Binder$27 TODAY · ONE PAYMENTFourteen days to change your mind · instant download · nothing to cancel
You Cannot Take a Video to the Barn.
This Goes in Your Pocket and Gets Rained On.
You will not remember any of this standing in the barn at six in the morning with cold hands.
This is US Letter paper out of your own printer, filled in with a pen and carried out to the barn.
It goes where the decision actually gets made: the bin lid, the bucket, the coop door, with a scoop in your other hand.
You do not print all 275 pages. The Tonight file is five sheets, and the Guide reads fine on a screen.
No login, no app, no subscription. Print a second Ledger when the first fills up, and a third for whoever takes the flock on after you. The paper outlasts the website.
Three Things People Say
Before They Buy This.
I have kept hens for twenty years.
Then you already know most of the levers. You still cannot say tonight what one hen costs you for a week, and neither could I after five years of keeping them.
I have not got the time.
The Ledger is one line, written standing up. The jar gets rinsed morning and night. If a week goes by and you write nothing, the month still closes.
I am no good with numbers.
It is addition, done once a month, with the boxes already drawn for you. And if you would rather type than add, the Calculator does the same sums on its own.
The kitchen-table guarantee.
Print the sheets. Run the thirty days. Close the Audit on day 30 with the same six figures you started with. Want your money back inside fourteen days? Write and say so. No reason needed. You keep every sheet you printed.
Two weeks is long enough to read it, print it and start. If it is not what I said it was, you will know well before then.
So you are not really buying it tonight. You are taking it out to the bin for two weeks to see if it does what I said.
The arithmetic of your own feed bill, in nine files you print tonight.
The whole of what is above, in nine printable files, plus the Calculator.
- The Guide: 148 pages, eighteen chapters, every figure from outside my own ledger carries its source
- The Case Study: the twelve worked months you just read, in full
- The Workbook, Planner, Cards and Ledger: the sheets you write on
- The Half-Feed List: 24 pages of tools and supplies, sized for six, twelve or twenty-five hens
- The Calculator: the same sums, if you would rather type than add
- Start Here and Tonight: so you know what to do first, today
- If you have ever put the bag in the cart without looking at the price…
- If you could not say tonight what one hen costs you for a week…
- If you have changed something and never known whether it worked…
- If January frightens you a little…
Then this was written for you.
Introductory price
Twenty-seven dollars. The bag on my receipt was twenty-four. One more bag buys you another month of not knowing. This buys you the number.
Twenty-seven is the opening price. It goes to forty-seven. The first readers tell me what is missing, and I would rather have that than the extra twenty dollars. Whatever you pay today, you pay once.
What it is designed to do: about a sixth off in the first thirty days. Half in June, July and August. About a third across the year. That is one twelve-hen flock on my prices, not a promise about yours.
Tonight: six numbers and ten minutes. Thirty days from now: the same sheet, with a smaller number on it.
- Fourteen days to change your mind. One email, no reason needed, and you keep every sheet you printed.
- It arrives straight away. The download page opens when you pay, and the link comes to your email as well.
- Nothing to cancel, ever. No subscription, no login, no app.
Secure checkout. Your card details never touch this page.
Eighteen Chapters.
It Starts With One Number and a Pencil.
Five Levers Into One Day’s Feed
Twenty minutes with a pencil turns the five levers into what actually goes in the pan tomorrow — shares, protein, pounds, scoops and dollars, worked twice in front of you. And the one fix rule that repairs any day that comes up short.
Chapter 12 of 18 · The Sheet
The Five Levers, and Where Each One Stops
The jar, the tray, the pot, the bed and the bin. What each one replaces, how much of the ration it can safely carry, and the ceiling beside it. Those ceilings are why you will not be disappointed in week three.
Chapters 7 to 11 of 18The other twelve cover what a hen actually eats, what is really in the bag, the two rules, calcium and grit, the ration sheet, the four corners of the year, going off pellets altogether, the neighbors, and the twelve reasons a hen stops laying. Every number sourced in the appendix.
And Eight More Files.
Not One of Them Is Padding.
12 Hens in January, the Case Study
The twelve months worked right through under the Guide’s own rules. Fifty-six dollars in January, twenty-three in June, forty-four in December, and the October I stood in the feed store and put the tub back.
This is the file you read the month your own number goes back up.
14 pages · one flock, one year
The Workbook
The sheets with the most writing on them: the Audit with day 1 and day 30 side by side, the Map of free feed, the Ration Builder and the dry mix.
Fill them in with a pen. The numbers are yours, not mine.
14 pages · the sheets you fill in
The 30-Day Planner
Four weeks, one new thing a week. You never change two things at once, so you always know which one worked.
Quick wins first, then a week per lever, then the day-30 close. Hold is not failure. The sheet says so out loud.
9 pages · four weeks, day by day
The Feed Ledger
Twelve months, eggs on the left and money on the right. Write the eggs each morning and the money the day you spend it.
Close the month on the last day. A year of it tells you which lever actually paid.
27 pages · twelve month sheetsAnd the Calculator, which does the same sums in a spreadsheet if you would rather type than add: the one file you do not have to print.
Start Here
What each file is, the order to use them in, and the one thing to do first.
10 pages · read this first
Tonight
The Audit, the two rules for the bin lid, and five quick wins that cost nothing. Ten minutes, before you read anything else.
5 pages · do it this evening
The Bin-Lid Cards
The two rules, the ladder, five ratio cards, the batch cards and the calendar. Read standing up, with a scoop in your hand.
24 pages · print on card stock
The Half-Feed List
Every tool and supply for the five levers, sized for six, twelve or twenty-five hens. It stops you buying the wrong thing twice.
24 pages · suppliers and toolsThat is all nine files, and the Calculator.
$27 once. Nothing to renew, nothing to log into, and fourteen days to decide.
Send Me the Binder$27 TODAY · ONE PAYMENTFourteen days to change your mind · instant download · nothing to cancel
I Do Not Have the Scraps for This.
Neither Did I. Scraps Are the Smallest Lever.
If you are about to tell me you do not have the scraps for this, you are right, and so was I.
This was never a plan that ran on kitchen scraps.
The kitchen is the smallest of the five, and if it were the lever, this would be a pamphlet. The bin runs on what is already rotting on your own place: the wet log, the flipped board, the pile behind the barn.
And when your own place runs out, you go ten miles.
One chapter is nothing but finding feed outside your own kitchen: who already has it, what they do with it now, and the words to ask. Tick what is within ten miles, circle three, and call the top three this week.
You Are Not Bad With Money.
Nobody Ever Handed You the Number.
You can close this page and nothing bad happens tonight. The bag costs what it costs.
Come January it costs more, the way it did for me: $56 that month against $23 in June.
Twelve months from now the year comes to $672 again, and you still will not be able to say what one hen costs you for a week.
I did that for five years. I was not careless. I just never wrote it down.
Or you spend ten minutes tonight at the kitchen table and come out of it holding a number that is yours. Then spend thirty days making it smaller, with the ceilings stated honestly and the sources printed at the back.
Next January the bag will cost whatever the bag costs. Nothing I sell changes that.
What changes is that you will know what it is doing to you, and which two things to move first. And when the flock goes on to somebody else one day, the Ledger goes with it, with your own twelve months already written in the front.
That is the whole offer. No countdown on this page, no fake stock, no invented customer count. The arithmetic holds up or I give you your money back.
What People Ask Me
"I have kept hens for twenty years. Is there anything in here I do not know?"
You will know some of the levers.
What you almost certainly do not have is the cost side written down in one place, with an honest ceiling on each lever and a ledger that says whether the change worked. If you have that already, you do not need this.
"Is this just the free videos, sold back to me?"
The videos show one lever at a time. The binder puts all of it in one place, with the arithmetic, the sources and the sheets you write on.
If you only want tonight’s number, do the Audit yourself, free. It is the first thing in the binder, and not the hard part.
The hard part is the five levers, the ceilings, and knowing which month to expect what.
"Will this make my hens start laying again?"
If they stopped because of short daylight, molt or age, no, and nothing else will either. There is a chapter on telling those apart from the causes you can fix, so you stop buying things that cannot help.
"Do I have to build anything?"
Not to start, and not this winter. The jar, the tray and the pot cost you a bucket, a jar, and the bag already in your bin.
The bed and the bug bin run about $90 once, and that $90 goes to a hardware store, not to me. There is no sense building either one in November.
"Will the files open on my computer?"
The PDFs open on any computer, phone or tablet. The Calculator opens in Excel, or in free Google Sheets, or in free LibreOffice. Nothing to install.
"How much work is this every day?"
The jar gets rinsed and refilled morning and night. The tray gets one rinse at the sink. The Ledger is one line, written standing up.
The bin gets a look once a week in the warm months, and none at all in the cold ones. Going away for a weekend? The sheet says which levers to pause.
"What if it is not for me?"
Fourteen days, full refund, one email, no reason needed. You keep every sheet you printed.
Still with me? Then you already know the number is worth finding.
$27, instant download, print at home, fourteen days to change your mind.
Send Me the Binder$27 TODAY · ONE PAYMENTFourteen days to change your mind · instant download · nothing to cancel
Know the number. Then make it smaller.
Nine printable files, plus the Calculator, and nothing to renew.
- Print the Audit first: ten minutes, six numbers off your own receipt
- Write the figure on the inside of the feed-bin lid
- Then pull the levers, in the order the binder puts them in
Introductory price
- Fourteen days to change your mind. One email, no reason needed, and you keep every sheet you printed.
- It arrives straight away. The download page opens when you pay, and the link comes to your email as well.
- Nothing to cancel, ever. No subscription, no login, no app.
Secure checkout. Your card details never touch this page.
Dawdi used to say a hen eats what you put in front of her, and that you should put arithmetic in front of yourself first.
He was right, and it took me an embarrassing number of years and one question from my wife to find out how right.
– Levi
LAVI LAPP
Lavi LAPP is proudly owned by
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