Breaking Even

[mossy_oak23]

Quote:
In what sense would it not? Simple. If they are filling their guts up with foraged food all day, they will eat less feed when I feed them each evening. I don't offer free choice, as I want my birds to be hungry enough each day to forage for a good portion of their diet. They even do this in the winter. I have an orchard and large yard in which to forage, as well as neighboring hay pastures.

Do I really see THAT much difference in feed consumption? Well, why in the heck wouldn't I? My birds don't often "run around", they stroll along, scratching and pecking, resting and dusting, sunning and just being chickens. When I feed them each evening, their crops are about half full, which only leaves so much room for commercial feeds. Not to mention, garden produce in season, the apple crop in season and any food scraps I care to throw out to them.

I can't imagine why I would offer free choice to birds who already have free choice right out in the grass!

Now, imagine the same chickens confined to a coop and run, bored to tears and with nothing to do than gorge themselves on free choice feeds.

Heck, yeah, I save money! Why in the world wouldn't someone prefer to save money on feed by using this method? And the majority of my bird's diet is as natural as it gets, they get fresh ground on which to trod, and fresh air and sunlight~ which also saves me money in flock health.

in my case i don't live on the farm i keep my chickens on. It is up the street from me so i can't just leave them running free on a guys farm. There are some days i cant get up to see them and i wouldn't be surprised if a fox were to get them all if i let them free range without supervision for 2 days.

 

[Beekissed]

Aw, that's a shame! If you could free range, you too could save some money on feed.

I love that fact that my birds can free range without any danger here. I never close my pop door....we have an open door policy!

 

[patandchickens]

The easiest way to break even is to use the eggs your hens lay to replace other food that you'd otherwise be buying. For instance, I make an egg-based dinner twice a week, where we would otherwise typically be using maybe $2-4 worth of meat in those meals. RIGHT THERE, I am 'making back' $4-8 per week from the chickens and it does not rely on anyone showing up to buy anything

If you can sell your eggs for as much as you pay in feed, averaged over the course of the year, that's nifty but it really depends SOOOO much on where you live. The market just doesn't exist everywhere.

Pat

 

[Bill in Hamlet]

If I add the cost of the Feed, Chickens, Coop and then divide by the number of eggs I have harvested. The cost of an Egg here is about $38.53 I'll expect to break even in sometime in 2012

The entertainment from them is PRICELESS.

Fair Winds,

Bill

 

[Equus5O]

I didn't get into chickens to make a profit. I merely wanted chickens. It's cost a few thousand dollars to get where I'm at with the coop, run and 18 chickens. I've given away far more eggs than I've sold. I have a sign at work advertising eggs for sale, and I indicate on the sign that I'm not making a profit. I'm charging for the eggs ($2.50/doz.) to pay for the chicken feed.

Now that I've advertised that I'm selling the eggs, I have at least one person that's not buying. According to her, cops make too much money. She had no problem taking them for free, and then gave me $1.25/doz. (I wasn't going to jump up and down that she misunderstood the price of 1/2 doz. versus full doz.). But, apparantly $2.50 for a dozen farm fresh eggs will break the bank for her and will sky rocket my income.

 

[txredneckmedic]

Ive got minimal money in mine and just started selling my duck eggs.

 

[The Zoo]

Based on what I was paying at the farmers market for free-range eggs, and what I pay for feed for my flock of 4, I'm WAY ahead.
Not counting the cost to build the coop/pen and what I'm going to pay to have a fence built for a chicken run of course....

 

[Marbleheader]

I have plenty of money and time (which is more valuable to me) invested in my 4 hens. The reason I stared my blog and run the live coop cam was to make a few extra bucks to be able to pay for feed and bedding for the hens. So far, I've made about $30 off of the blog. At this rate, I'll break even in March of 2057. Plus I spend a lot of time at work watching he chickens, so I'm less productive, too.

 

[Uzuri]

Don't forget to factor in the fact that you're not buying eggs for yourself.

I think if I hadn't had to put in so much money at the start for housing my "break even" spreadsheet wouldn't look so bad. I'm actually tracking a second column on the sheet that's just for food/oyster shell/necessities other than housing so I can see what's up there, since the cost of building was so out of whack.