cost of raising chicks? - Page 2

Well this is my costs.

 

Coop = $4 for latches, all other material was recycled from a fallen building

Fence = $70 for 150 feet

8 posts =  @ $3 each , so $24

50 lb bag of feed = $8 (I'm still not out and its been almost a month)

25 + 8 day old chicks from two different hatcheries = $80

Brooder = Free we repurposed an old guinea pig cage

Bedding for brooder ( I used sand) = $1.75

Paper towels for brooder for first few days = $1 for a 3 pack

waterer and feeder = free I made my own out of recycled containers

Heat lamp and bulbs = $15

 

total start up costs = $203.75

 

I will be keeping all girls and 2 boys, all the rest of the boys will be butchered. Any future babies --- boys will be butchered, girls sold to help make back any costs of raising the chickens.

 

It is very true it can be very costly or not so much if you repurpose a lot of items. My husband and i loved the idea of having chickens for the fresh eggs and more of a country life style and also for our kids as a learning experience. SO we added up what we thought would be the cost and thought hey thats not bad $50 to start the chicks out and then maybe another $100 maybe $200 on the coop if we found lots of recycled material. Well I was wrong. weve built 2 brooders out of plywood (one small and one to grow in to) and a 3rd one out of cardborad needed 3 screens to cover the tops, needed 2 heat lamps, 2 250watt red bulbs and got another 2 as just incase, 2 water fountains, 2 food feeders,  they go through a bag of chick starter a week (we are on bag 4) and then they need chick grit, and pine shavings, not to mention the thousands or paper towels and clorox wipes weve gone through we are on our second bottle of hand sanitzer. SOOOO way more than i was thinking LOL But i have a tendancy to over do everything My Husband just smiles and shakes his head at me.

 

Now onto the coop. What we thought was gonna be a recycled repurposed quirky little coop turned out to be build from scratch using all new materials. $35 for the plan and the coop just was finished $550 later not to mention the run which will be started anyday now so add on another couple hundred. My inexpensive pets for saving money on eggs turned out to be a project. But they are so great and im so glad we started this adventure. This is just my story, I have seen some fantastic posts of people who have spent hardly anything at all and have everything they need for happy healthy chickens.

We had an old barn that we wanted to tear down until dh wanted to get some hens.

 

Well, we fixed it up and used a corner of it for the coop. It was about 4 pieces of plywood  ( untreated cheap stuff ) which was under 30 bucks for hardware and plywood.

 

We used an old shelving unit and converted it to a 6 hole nesting box. We bought 6 Buff Orp hens that were already laying but the silly things wanted this one corner to lay in.... and it was causing a ruckus lol so i put a plastic milk crate in that corner and that is their favorite place to lay..... we already had the shelfing unit and the milk crate so those were free !

 

We cut out a hole in the end of the building for their entrance/exit door and we already had extra kennel fence panels from my labs so we used those.

 

I just bought 21 chicks and one died so I'm down to 20. I got most of them for 1.99 at TSC and Rural King and a couple of them for 1.49 so that was cheap ... bag of 50 pound feed was 10.50.

 

We bought the waterer and feeder for the older girls and those were in thr 20-30 dollar range for each. We bought a heat lamp but didnt use it on the big girls aka my hooligans. That was about 10 bucks including the 250 watt bulb.

We also bought some "chicken wire" and I have no clue how much those rolls were as hubby bought those when I wasnt with him.

We've used a lot of them for different things so all of that cost cannot be attributed to the chickens.

 

We also built another small coop and between using what we had, the hardware, the lumber etc , we have about 200 bucks in that.

 

We also recently bought two more dog kennels from a friend for 50 bucks each. A major STEAL ! to extend the girls yard.

 

You can look for things you might need at yard sales, on Craigslist, on Freecycle groups ( in your county and surrounding counties ) and out of the 2nd's pile at your local home depot, menards, lowes etc.

 

We did one thing at a time.. we worked all last summer on fixing up our small barn and by fall we had gotten our 6 buff orp hooligans ( they crack me UP lol ).

 

So really, the bottom line is that you can go as cheap or as expensive as you want.... remember... the chickens do not care what their home looks like as long as they have shelter,  food, water , a place to lay their eggs and a place to be in the yard to peck for bugs and grass .....

 

Best of luck .

 

 

Another thing .... for the chicks.......... I had them in the house for about a week in a long rubber made tote ( already had ) and got a bag of pine shavings ( 5.00 ) ....

 

We moved them to the barn and I set up my puppy play yard... it looks like plastic baby gates all hooked together ( yard salw for 20 bucks several years ago ).. we also used some scrap 2x4s and stapled some chickenwire to them, to make a protection cover for the top of the play yard / chick yard, so that the cats couldnt get to them. Well that worked until I expanded their play yard and put some pieces of plywood over the end that wasnt covered by the wire and 2x4's cover.

 

The puppy/chick play yard is really made for children but I found it worked for puppies and so glad I kept it and got to use it for the chicks.

 

Our breakdown:

Chicks: $25
Chick-raising supplies: $35ish (lamp, feeders, food, etc)
Coop: $180

So, call it $250, give or take. My husband was shocked to find that the chicks themselves were by far the cheapest part of getting set up to have chickens.