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Optical Distortion Notes
I. How much is a pair of ODI lens worth to the chicken farmer?
The value for the farmer is value of substitution in use, in other words substitution of the existing method “debeaking”. So the value of a pair is
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So let us consider the benefits to the farmer per bird per year. The sources of benefits are
1. Reduced chicken mortality.
Mortality reduced from 9% to 4.5%
The present cost of a surviving bird (including dead birds) is = $ 2.61
Less the new cost with the lens is $ 2.40/(1-0.045) = - $ 2.51
_________
10 cents
2. Feed savings
Assume that the feed depth is reduced by ½ feet. Some of you might have assumed that the feed depth is reduced by 1 foot.
156/2 [Savings for ½ feet per day] X 1/20,000 [savings per chicken] X 158/2000 [savings/lb] X 365 days
This gives us feed savings of 11.25 cents.
3. Savings on egg production
This could be because of less trauma. Based on an one egg increase relative to debeaking per chicken per annum.
1 egg X 1/12 0.53
This gives us a savings on egg production to be 4.5 cents.
Thus the total calculable economic benefit to the chicken farmer in use over debeaking = 25.75 cents
4. Other benefits:
Some other benefits you might have thought about:
• Labor cost of inserting lenses versus that of debeaking. This can be seen as a wash (220/hr debeaking vs. 225/hr. lenses).
• Increased egg production among lower pecking order birds
• Less dead birds = less trauma for survivors = more egg production.
Segmentation
In geographic terms California is the largest market. Followed by Florida + Georgia + Carolinas....
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