“So lucky, you get free eggs”

[nuthatched]

$23 for a 50# sack of feed, it lasts for my 7/8 birds about a month.
Plus:
$600 coop
$350 run
The cost of the birds themselves: $5-$18 a chick.
Not to mention, the hatching egg fiasco. $180 for eggs, $120 for incubator, $12 for thermometers= one very nice but very expensive rooster.

Bought a bag a scratch (nutrena berry flavored high protein) for the first time ever since it smelled nice

 

[cheezenkwackers]

$23 for a 50# sack of feed, it lasts for my 7/8 birds about a month.
Plus:
$600 coop
$350 run
The cost of the birds themselves: $5-$18 a chick.
Not to mention, the hatching egg fiasco. $180 for eggs, $120 for incubator, $12 for thermometers= one very nice but very expensive rooster.

Bought a bag a scratch (nutrena berry flavored high protein) for the first time ever since it smelled nice

I forgot to include the cost of my Brinsea incubator and brooder plate.

 

[PrettyBirdRocky]

Lol

Just my Amazon orders alone for chickens... Over two years mind you,850 (does include tarps and hardware cloth, and heaters(dog bowl/broody plate)) and an automatic door we don't use...

Then wood, pen, panels, screws, zipties, ductape, pine, mulch, pellets, horse fresh, hay, buckets, feeders, sand, peat moss, fans, stain, Bungie cords, rakes, medicines...and then this year we bought a wheel barrow... Yeah... I'm not sure I wanna add it all up lolol

Then again we KNEW the prices we were going to put into them, knowing we'd never make a profit. Although when we sell eggs in the summer it covers either load of pine or load of feed! So that's a bonus!

 

[EmmaDonovan]

I'm curious, how many of you actually name your chickens?

I don't name mine, they are farm animals and meant for consumption either for their eggs or for meat so naming them would not be wise.

Ours are named because we need to have some way to talk about them other than "the Rhode Island red with the green leg band." It's easier to say "Ruby."

They were intended to be just livestock in theory but that idea vanished as soon as I picked them up as chicks.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

We live in a desert where everything has to be provided for the hens since they cannot free-range (too many predators) and there's very little for chickens to eat in a desert, anyway.

We give them organic feed, Oyster shell and grubs; we grow wheat grass and other greens and sprout seeds for them, plus they get kitchen scraps. During molting they get salmon, sardines, and tuna.

The one thing we don't need to provide is grit since the entire ground is grit!

A tornado destroyed our first coop and run last summer. I built a second, temporary coop and run which they're still in, and now I'm building a third, permanent coop and run. I hadn't budgeted for building three coops and runs in one year but here we are.

It's expensive but we do it to provide the animals in our care the best life we can give them and also to get eggs that come from healthy, happy, much-doted-on hens.

 

[BDutch]

I'm curious, how many of you actually name your chickens?

I don't name mine, they are farm animals and meant for consumption either for their eggs or for meat so naming them would not be wise.

I have no farm, but a chicken run and a garden. The chickens free range a few hours each day (if possible ) . So my chickens are run & garden animals.
There are only 8 of them so I gave them names for sure. I don’t kill and process them. Never had the intention either.

My costs last year … about:
€ 120 for a playhouse
€ 20 for extra materials to make a coop from it.
€ 140 for an auto pop door
€ 15 for hatching eggs
€ 10 for a second hand back up mini incubator
€ 20 paper shredder
€ 40 new solar lamps
…..
€ 5 straw
€ 5 shavings
€ 150 organic feed (guessing)
€ 8 mealworms
€ 5 oyster shell
€ 2 grit

€ 40 finecto+ against red mite
———
€ 555 total

I suppose we have collected an average of 12 bantams eggs a week for about 40 weeks = 480 eggs

—->>>> 1 bantam egg costed € 1,15

Other (normal) years the cost were much more moderate. If I only count the maintenance supplies and feed its still
€ 175 + at least another 25 for paint or DE = € 200 —>>> 42 cts

If I compare this with a cat who vomits at least 10 x a year. And needs to see the vet once a year … my eggs are much cheaper than each vomit of a cat.

All in all , is having chickens a cheap hobby and entertaining companion with benefits .

 

[BDutch]

Yep, its honestly sad, because when we got ours, everyone was buying chickens because of the pandemic, then as soon as its over, they get rid of all their poor chickens

The pandemic lasted longer than laying hen in factory farming. And had a better life as long as the owners took care of the chickens.
So if the pandemic chickens were poor —>> people makes extremely poor chickens in factory farming

 

[EmmaDonovan]

50 pounds of layer mash and that lasts my chickens about 2 weeks.

How many chickens? (Hey, you're not far from where I live, howdy neighbor!)

 

[RennaeHanson]

How many chickens? (Hey, you're not far from where I live, howdy neighbor!)

Howdy Neighbor! I have 13 hens and a rooster.

 

[gtaus]

After start up costs, I save monthly on eggs. I got about 1,000 eggs last year and spent $125. If I’m including startup costs though, it’ll be many years before I break even.

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!