Actually I agree with Bill on this one. I have relatives in the rural Philippines that raise chickens among other things, and when I think about it every house I ever visited there had chickens and ducks. Anyway their methods are much more utilitarian than ours. They don't have any persistent predators like coons and coyotes to speak of except for the two-legged kind, so things like hardware cloth, etc. aren't as much necessary. Coops are usually made out of scrap bamboo or plywood laying around, and probably 1/2 the birds' diets are bugs, vegetation, and leftovers. Feed isn't cheap by local standards but it isn't prohibitively expensive either. Selling eggs isn't big business in the area I'm familiar with because most everyone has their own. All chicks are born to brooding mothers and no one maintains pure breeds except for the Red Jungle Fowl, and even some of them are cross bred. So I think if you do it that way chickens can certainly be a producing asset. I'm only talking about one particular area and I know this probably doesn't apply everywhere, but I think in a lot of cases chickens in less developed countries are the gift that keeps on giving.
