I have a pretty solid laying fleet at he moment composed of standard size layers and they are eating around 10lbs a day at 7 weeks! I want to keep building the fleet a little at a time, but do not want to over do it with the feed expense. Would it be worth while to consider bantams? How much less do they actually eat then the standard breeds? vortec
Mine probably eat half as much as my standard girls, if that. But their eggs are only 1/2 the size too. So you have to use twice as many when cooking - so it seems like it all comes out even in the end. I buy my layer feed in 50lb. sacks for my birds, and it costs $11.95 per sack. We go through 50lb. each week. I have 27 standard pullets, 3 bantam pullets, and 3 cockerels. All the standards are laying, and at least one of the bantams just started this week. I keep a spreadsheet to track costs, and dividing the feed by the number of eggs, my eggs are costing about $1.20/dozen, and I can sell as many of them as I want for $2/dozen. It pretty much pays for feed. Or Dr. Pepper - whichever we need worse when we sell the eggs LOL.
