Cost vs. benefit analysis

[tick22]

I guess living in the country, I am lucky. I buy from local farmers when I did not grow something or can't trade for it, (they have one price for locals and one for city folks, because of buzz words ) We charge $2.00 a dozen, But as funny as it seems, when city folks drop by when they see my egg sign, they just give me $5.00 per dozen real quick and go off happy, thinking they got a deal cause those organic, free range eggs are cheaper from me than the so call healthy stores. (we are talking the folks from the north-east, ya know NY, NJ and that area...) I tried once to tell the lady I did not charge $5.00 dollars a dozen and she said she would not pay more than $6.00 a dozen. I shut up and took her money, she looked so happy to get her 4 dozen eggs so cheap. Go figure. I guess they feel like if it is too cheap it is not good. City folks, you got to love/pity them. We get the city folks during their vacations and they all want to stock up on organic clean food. laughs I do feel bad but they just have to argue about NOT paying more. My local people know the price and just smile if they are around.

As I posted before, I do the whole thing on the cheap.

Wsmith....
Got two venison roasts and 1/2 a tenderloin for 3 dozen eggs..... I think I got the best end of that deal.
Heck yes you did. I thought I did good getting 1 venison and 1/2 a tenderloin for 2 dozen, but you... you are the master...

again, ya got to love the country living...

 

[Paul_A]

I am new to the chicken game, I have 4 hens that began laying steadily last June. They are averaging a 50lb bag of crumbles around every 8 weeks and they are laying an average of just under 3 eggs a day.

So in 6 weeks we ate 10 dozen eggs which at the market cost 25 bucks and the bag of feed cost around 17 bucks.

At this rate it will take 10 years or so to pay off the 700 I spent building their coop, lol. I just started feeding them fermented feed which supposedly will cut my feed bill in half. Only 5 years to break even, woohoo!

So far though the consensus here at my house is they are more than worth the expense.

 

[dreamcatcherarabians]

Here's a pic of my cheap coop and run. We had an old, dilapidated storage shed and repurposed it to be our coop $0, bought a couple of sheets of that T1-11 siding $20/each, and some tin roofing for over the run (not yet in place) $12/each X 4, and a couple rolls of Hardware Cloth $40 X 2, so about $168 for the coop. We've talked about moving it and creating a concrete pad for it, rather than the recycled cinder blocks for a foundation. I have recycled cinder blocks in front of my egg boxes because they're too deep for me to reach the eggs without some kind of step. In this pic we're working on cutting the windows, but just have one finished. Inside there are 'shutters' that are pulled up and hooked during good weather and dropped down in foul.



We still haven't got it all painted in this one but you can see the windows, shutters and 'chicken door' on this end, the other end has the 'man' door so we can walk in. Inside we have 3 elevations of roosts and the open face of the egg boxes, we have 6 egg boxes in the coop.

We're in the south so I rarely need heat but I do keep a 25W light going during winter to increase laying. If we get an ice storm, I can put in a heat lamp. I didn't the first one and had some chickens get frost bit wattles and combs, I felt real sorry for them. With the heat lamp on for just a few days during the worst of an ice storm, they do fine.

Our first venture we used chicken wire and learned the hard way that it isn't really for keeping chickens safe, and re-did the whole thing with hardware cloth, haven't lost a chicken to predators since. <Knocks on wood!>

 

[mg15]

HI, I thought I would ask you this question.
I have young (14 weeks) Leghorns, are healthy,
no worms to see,
should I think about worming them ?
Thanks.

I too am TRYING to be thrifty.

 

[Chambertin]

Well my first girl is laying regularly now.
This is good and bad.

Its really good because my eggs went down in price from $400 to about $70 per egg.
Soon enough the other girls will come on-line with egg production a few of them are singing and squat hopping around now, again a good thing.

However there is one bad thing...
I'll never get that same feeling I got eating a $400 egg.
Ahh to be so wealthy I could throw away $401 on a single breakfast (I included the toast and OJ) what a life I lived before the great egg price crash.
Never again shall I feel so grand (a single tear rolls down my cheek as I regile the grandchildren with tales of the good old days).

Seriously though, although I dont think I'll ever make the investment "back" I have had a lot of fun and am very happy with the cost to benifit ratio.
Amazingly if I'm even halfway cognative after my happy beer time its possible to break even pretty quick (considering I like doing it)
400 + 20x = 40x is the formula I thought of for finding the break even point.
400 initial investment plus 20 per month in food (not including table scraps and random bits already paid for) as cost, then 40 per month as potential sales for the potential 450 eggs per month. Based on 15 eggs a day out of 19 layers then a price of 1.14 per dozen gives 40 per month.
This shows a 20 month break even point

Sure thats a long time to wait, but heck its pretty interesting having chickens around. If there were more land avilable and the flock grew to max potential the coop space allows egg farming could really be a profitable venture. Even in an apartment! (my birds live on the balcony check out my coop)
Still I'll keep my day job, at least for now.

Also my math might be way off, let me know.

 

[Spifflove]

Sorry I missed your post. You should not worm them. If they cannot handle a few worms they should be culled. Refer to the oldtimers thread in managing your flock.

 

[mg15]

Hi, I did go to the Forum Managing Your Flock,
But the Oldtimers thread was taken down, according
to the respondents.
Thanks.

 

[Spifflove]

Hi, I did go to the Forum Managing Your Flock,
But the Oldtimers thread was taken down, according
to the respondents.
Thanks.

This is the thread:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...l-up-a-rockin-chair-and-lay-some-wisdom-on-us

Worth a read.

 

[ImpulsiveFarmer]

I live in an area right by a feed mill. The cost of feed is a lot cheaper than if I had to buy from tractor supply or a similar store. If you don't buy chicks or hatching eggs every year you will be able to reduce your cost. I'm getting a foundation flock from Sand Hill this spring of Black Australorps for my layers and Delawares for my meat birds. They seem to be the most efficient breeds that will also breed true. The trouble with the hybrid layers is they don't breed true so you are constantly having to buy replacements from hatcheries.

If you are just looking to feed your family it's not cheaper and it's an expensive hobby. I'm looking to start a business, but I'm not just raising chickens I have pigs as well. Still it will probably take years before I break even.

 

[coffeenutdesign]

I free range and we have very little winter so my feed costs aren't too exorbitant. However, I am on a mission to grow as much of my own food as possible. I can't put a price on not being a contributor to the abuses of our food system made by big agriculture, I don't want to eat a bunch of hormones and chemicals, I want to know my food had a good life while it was living, and you can't beat the taste of homegrown. So, it might not be as cost effective on paper, but I like to consider the long-term health benefits, the socio-ecological benefits, and the peace of mind. Also, the fact that you can't even come close to the same quality in store bought anything automatically makes your own food more valuable. Sorry, veggies in the store are CRAP when compared to growing your own, and the same goes for meat and eggs so it's like comparing Walmart to Neiman Marcus or something. Of course walmart is more cost effective, but the quality doesn't come close. Plus, they are cheap entertainment, lol.

*ETA: There is also the pest eradication benefit. When we moved into our house there was a serious tick problem and when we started planting grass and watering, all sorts of nasty bugs came out. I live in the desert in west Texas, we have some seriously creepy critters. Those chickens took care of those problems better than any insecticide could and I would much rather use them than chemicals! My kids and animals play in that yard.