Do you chooks pay for themselves??

[Katy]

 

[momma's chickens]

They pay for the feed and that is it and not always do they do that. Gotta love them to have them!

 

[redhen]

my answer would be a big fat empty egg nest NO!

 

[bywaterdog]

If my birds don't pay for dinner, then they are dinner.Sorry folks, I do not have pet chickens they are livestock.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
Mine aren't pets either, but that doesn't mean they make me any money. I about break even on feed bills and that's it. Just because they aren't pets like my cats and dogs, doesn't mean I don't enjoy them.

 

[dichotomymom]

They pay for feed (the layers). I eat the ones that don't lay. Hopefully after I am certified, our broilers will actually turn a profit. Same here, they are livestock.

 

[briteday]

We make a very small profit...but I am very frugal and a great bargain hunter. I have also chosen my chicken breeds carefully for excellent egglaying potential. If egglaying isn't your thing then perhaps raising rare breeds and selling hatching eggs is. But you uhave to find a niche market for something. Otherwise, only keep enough birds to feed your own family and consider the grocery money saved for truly good healthy eggs. And also consider the costs saved for using the chicken manure as fertilizer in your veggie garden or lawn.

I find the biggest expense is housing and acquiring/raising chicks to replenish the flock. So I look for housing deals on craigslist. Most people will sell things for far less than the materials would cost you. But you have to be willing to think outside the box. You have to envision that doghouse with a hinged lid and some buckets or rubbermaid tubs for nestboxes. Or figure out a way to move an unwanted shed to your own property. Our most recent housing is an 8 x 10 wooden storage shed that costs about $600 - 1000+ new retail. I found one for $100, you move it...and it wasn't nearby. But my husband got some friends together who had acceess to various resources, they moved the shed on a Saturday morning (in the wee hours to avoid prying eyes into the 'possibly illegal" method, but we were totally safe about it nonetheless to avoid hurting anyone including ourselves), I made everyone a fantastic breakfast when the work was done, and my husband returns the favor whevever they need a hand. Yep, there was another month of getting the shed level and in exactly the right spot, cleaning, painting, building roosts and such out of more found 2 x 4's from local construction dumpsters (ask the foreman first otherwise it's stealing...and they might even save you some primo stuff)...before we could even move the birds into it. But it was cheaper than the alternatives that I can't afford. So my housing costs have been pretty minimal. My only other splurges have been chain link kennel panels (my splurge since the 6' wood fence would have been satisfactory but we have renters on one sid ethat don't amintain their fence) and $8 each nesting boxes sold at Lowes as stackable garage storage. Time and materials to make my own would cost more and my girls haven't taken to every effort on my part to use free buckeets or milk crates.

Next, we don't have a lot of places to buy chicks here and shipping is expensive, not to mention the minimum orders required. For the past few years I have either payed the price at the feed store ($2.50-4/chick = $60 for 20 chicks for the year) or pooled orders to hatcheries with friends...still $60 per year with shipping. This Spring I am ordering hybrids from the hatchery , I have already acquired a wonderfully bred, young RIR roo to use for breeding in the future (traded a "spent hen", still laying but they only wanted non-crowing yard art anyway), and am including 5 RIR pullets and 5 RIR-white pullets in my hatchery order with friends and feed store purchases. My goal next Spring is to create my own hybrids from the best layers out of the bunch using my RIR roo to fertilize. I have a friend who is willing to incubate my eggs in her AWESOME incubator in trade for pick of the litter for her own flock and/or selling the excess chicks for her own income to help pay for the cost of her electricity to incubate and playing around with her own breeding projects. We have a mutual friend who will take any males that we don't want on to a local ag auction. I'm hoping this turns out to be a less expensive means of replenishing my flock and not bringing in new birds from various sources that have the possiblility of introducing unwanted things to my flock. Wish me luck.

As for the day-to-day needs of feed, bedding, oyster shell...the girls pay for themselves and then some with egg sales. Since the teenage daughter has these things to explore we got a few silkies last year. Only one hen/roo pair remains with us. But the hen gives us an egg almost every day. Although they aren't the most productive breed and the eggs are small, using the silkie eggs ourselves allows us to sell all of the normal sized eggs from the flock. In the Spring when we ofetn have lots of pullet eggs and not much else, I will give our egg customers 6 silkie eggs with a dozen pullet eggs, or 18 pullet eggs for the dozen price. Our small flock of 15 egglayers keeps a handful of regular customers paying for the feed, I get to use the silkie eggs, and in peak egglaying season a local cafe buys as many excess eggs as I bring them. The local ranchers appreciate the farm rasised eggs for breakfast and the cafe sells any they can't use to the locals who also come in to eat. So the eggs not only pay for the chickens' basic needs but provide a bit of gas money for the teenager, at least during the summer.

In 2009, at the end of the calendar year we were $4 and change in debt for the chickens over the course of the year. That included new chicks and cost of raising them to POL (we have been offsetting the cost by buying enough to sell to 4-6 weeks of age for those that don't want day old chicks), feed, bedding, oyster shell, treats. As with anything in the beginning there is obviously a start up cost. But we were lucky and looked for bargains. One of the chain link kennels came from a couple whose kids used it for 4H chicken projects. They offered to bring all the feed pans and plastic waterers (free) when we arranged to meet for the kennel purchase. They were happy to dispose of this stuff laying around and taking up storage space since they knew we would put it to good use. So I payed $50 for a 10 x 10 kennel but probably received another $50-100 in almost new supplies.

Spend some time looking for bargains in the right places and you can make reaising chickens a break even project. If you are really creative you can profit a little bit.

 

[OrpingtonManor]

The first year, I would have said, yes, barely, but they did lay enough to cover the coop and their feed. (I scrounged for reclaimed materials, and only spent $200 on my coop and run. It even looks nice.)

After the first year, they probably weren't breaking even anymore, even with just the cost of food and treats. Then one of them got sick, and I took her to the vet. She still died.

It will take a single bird an entire year of laying to pay back that vet visit. No, they don't pay for themselves, but I like them anyway.

If I didn't have them, I would skimp on my own food to fix my budget. Since I won't skimp on their food to fix the budget, we all eat well because I have chickens.

Chickens are priceless. Life would be less without them.

 

[NonnasBabies]

Quote:
I second this!! I didn't get chickens to make a profit!! Personally I don't make anything. I wanted them because I wanted them!! And I wanted the fresh eggs for my family. Just like my horses!! Their my pets and I enjoy the heck out of them so it doesn't bother me at all!!

Missi

 

[Mahonri]

Well, what is the price of teaching my kids how to work and take care of chickens?

So few people teach their children to work anymore. It's why this nation is becoming a welfare state.

My chickens certainly do NOT pay for themselves, but they are teaching my children the value of work.

Each week when the coop and pens are cleaned I ask them to look at it and how it feels to have a clean place for the 'girls' to stay.

I'm sure they don't look forward to chores every Saturday... they don't mind they daily feeding and gathering the eggs...that's no big deal for them... but sometimes they have to scrape some sticky poop off of the floor so that they can get the linoleum spotless before they lay down the DE and pine shavings.... and they are looking forward to seeing how the plants in the garden do with all of the poop they have composted in it over the past few months.


I like the fact that they now know what is expected of them, and when we are out there cleaning it gives us together time where we can talk and joke and bond.


Now that's priceless.