“So lucky, you get free eggs”

[TooCheep]

Here's a picture of my real money maker in my setup...

View attachment 4050720

I encourage anyone raising poultry to make compost and use it in their gardens to grow more food. To me, there is a lot more value in chickens than just all the "free" eggs we get!

Nice setup. I have a simple, manual sifter that I use for both chicken compost and in my "Back to Eden" deep wood chip setup. It serves me well and I make a little money supplying neighbors.

 

[RennaeHanson]

Yep, it's all those startup costs that really put you behind the financial profit curve. I was able to build my chicken coop for around $600.00, using about $700.00 additional in reclaimed lumber. Even so, it will be a while before I break even on this adventure.

I built a nice, elevated chicken coop on an old boat trailer. It's great for the chickens. However, if I had to start all over again, I think I'm leaning towards building a shed conversion. That way, if a person stops raising poultry, you still have a useable shed for storage. In my case, my chicken coop is really only good for keeping chickens, and not much more.

I make a lot of Black Gold chicken run compost every year. In fact, hundreds of dollars equivalent of bagged compost at the big box stores. I get more value from making compost with my chickens than I get from selling our excess eggs. In that respect, I recoup my startup costs every year!

Here's a picture of my real money maker in my setup...

View attachment 4050720

I encourage anyone raising poultry to make compost and use it in their gardens to grow more food. To me, there is a lot more value in chickens than just all the "free" eggs we get!

Can you please explain what all you have going on in this picture? LOL

 

[TooCheep]

Can you please explain what all you have going on in this picture? LOL

It is a fairly advanced home compost sifter. @gtaus has a cement mixer (left side) that is used to rotate the barrel with mesh in the middle. You put the raw compost in, rotate it in the barrel and finer particles drop into the black cart. This compost is pure gold for organic gardening.

The larger, less broken-down pieces go into the white cart and can be used again for bedding until they are properly broken down or can go somewhere where you want more of a mulch than compost.

I have a simple wooden rectangle with hardware cloth on the bottom. Shovel in the raw material, shake it over a wheel barrow to collect the compost. @gtaus' version saves a lot of work.

 

[Squawkers]

Yep, it's all those startup costs that really put you behind the financial profit curve. I was able to build my chicken coop for around $600.00, using about $700.00 additional in reclaimed lumber. Even so, it will be a while before I break even on this adventure.

I built a nice, elevated chicken coop on an old boat trailer. It's great for the chickens. However, if I had to start all over again, I think I'm leaning towards building a shed conversion. That way, if a person stops raising poultry, you still have a useable shed for storage. In my case, my chicken coop is really only good for keeping chickens, and not much more.

I make a lot of Black Gold chicken run compost every year. In fact, hundreds of dollars equivalent of bagged compost at the big box stores. I get more value from making compost with my chickens than I get from selling our excess eggs. In that respect, I recoup my startup costs every year!

Here's a picture of my real money maker in my setup...

I encourage anyone raising poultry to make compost and use it in their gardens to grow more food. To me, there is a lot more value in chickens than just all the "free" eggs we get!

Wow! That's so cool!!

 

[EmmaDonovan]

It is a fairly advanced home compost sifter. @gtaus has a cement mixer (left side) that is used to rotate the barrel with mesh in the middle. You put the raw compost in, rotate it in the barrel and finer particles drop into the black cart. This compost is pure gold for organic gardening.

The larger, less broken-down pieces go into the white cart and can be used again for bedding until they are properly broken down or can go somewhere where you want more of a mulch than compost.

I have a simple wooden rectangle with hardware cloth on the bottom. Shovel in the raw material, shake it over a wheel barrow to collect the compost. @gtaus' version saves a lot of work.

That is awesome. I've never gotten the hang of composting here in the desert but you are an inspiration!

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Howdy Neighbor! I have 13 hens and a rooster.

Oh, dur, I didn't see you'd already said that. I need to stop reading the forums when I'm really tired!

 

[gtaus]

Can you please explain what all you have going on in this picture? LOL

It is a fairly advanced home compost sifter. @gtaus has a cement mixer (left side) that is used to rotate the barrel with mesh in the middle. You put the raw compost in, rotate it in the barrel and finer particles drop into the black cart. This compost is pure gold for organic gardening.

Yep, that's basically what it does.

I have a simple wooden rectangle with hardware cloth on the bottom. Shovel in the raw material, shake it over a wheel barrow to collect the compost. @gtaus' version saves a lot of work.

I used a wooden frame with wire cloth on the bottom for years and years. Just put in on top of my wheelbarrow and get to sifting. However, I decided to "go big" on my composting efforts and invested in that cement mixer compost sifter setup. It takes me about 15 minutes to sift out compost that previously it would take me maybe 2 hours with the manual system.

I now harvest hundreds of dollars' worth of compost for my raised beds every year. I have increased my gardening by more than 2X as much area and will be increasing it again this year.

Although I am getting on in age, I am now gardening more than ever, with much less effort, due to my cement mixer compost sifter.

Will a cement mixer compost sifter add to the cost of your "free eggs"? I can tell that I had to buy a brand-new cement mixer because I could not find a used one where I live. The new cement mixer, barrel, screens, and nuts and bolts cost me ~$240.00. That seems like a lot of money, and it was. But I was able to sift out $240.00 in Black Gold compost my very first afternoon in one 4-hour session. In other words, it paid for itself in one afternoon and now everything I sift out is all "free"!

Because I truly get more value out of my chicken run compost than my eggs, I just tell people that I have composting chickens and get "free eggs" as a bonus!

I started raising chickens for all those "free eggs" that we all get. But I found out that I get more value in making compost with the chickens. The compost feeds my gardens. And the gardens feed my family.

A person does not need a setup like mine, but if you decide to invest in a labor saving, gardening size increasing, system like mine, it will pay for itself in no time. I certainly have no regrets in investing in that setup for me.

I posted an in-depth explanation of my cement mixer compost sifter build at How to determine quality of different types of compost? post #22 dated Aug 31, 2020.

 

[gtaus]

Nice setup. I have a simple, manual sifter that I use for both chicken compost and in my "Back to Eden" deep wood chip setup. It serves me well and I make a little money supplying neighbors.

I gave some of my Black Gold chicken run compost to a neighbor that had a small garden. They were good people. But they moved and nobody else in the neighborhood does any gardening.

I don't have a market for my compost, I just "sell" it to myself instead of buying bags of compost at the big box store like I did for many years.

The "Back to Eden" system that Paul talks about uses his homemade wood chip compost (with animal manures) to get the results he shows. If you just used plain wood chips, it would not work nearly as well. I saw a YouTube video where a guy visited Paul's gardens and said that when Paul talks about this wood chip "Back to Eden" garden, it's not plain wood chips he uses. It's much more of a composted wood chip litter filled with animal manures and other organics. So that is what I have tried to recreate in my chicken run setup, although I use more leaves than wood chips in my current system. It's all organic and breaks down into great compost.

 

[Sally PB]

I don't know how much money we have in building our coop and run. I'd guess around $1000. Not sure how much I've spent on chicks, but I'll guess around $300. Feed? $22/50 lbs, and it lasts almost 4weeks, so around $300/year. Pine shavings, about $30/year. Oyster shell and grit, eh, $10/year. Meds I've accumulated to fill out a chicken medicine cabinet: Hard to guess, but I'm going high(maybe?) with $300.

Building and chicks: $1300
Food for 4 years: $1200
Shavings, grit, OS: $160
First aid meds: $300

Not quite $3K.

How many eggs? Uh... not going to go add them all up, but I only buy eggs for about 3 weeks a year, when the ladies are molting. Delicious eggs, and plenty, to make things like frittatas...

Compost? Oh, my did my compost, and therefore my garden, get better after I got chickens!

Hanging out on BYC? Laughter and friendship. Put a price tag on that? Nope.

Companionship: Having a bad/sad/mad day? I go sit with the chickens and feel better. Price tag on that? Do you know what therapists charge these days?!?!?!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I love your answer, Sally, we get SO much more from the chickens than just eggs! If it weren't for my chickens I might never get out of my recliner, leading to an early death!