Feed costs/money making...

[arherp]

For anyone on here that is not self sufficient and makes a profit on their birds and eggs, how do you do it? I cannot afford 14.00 per bag. I don't have enough birds to mix my own feed at a mill. I've tried shopping around. Any ideas at all?!

 

[joedie]

I'd like to know this also. I guess it depends on where you located and how much you can sell your eggs for. I can only get $2/doz around here and it doesn't cover the cost of the feed let alone the time involved cleaning and collecting the eggs. Doesn't really matter to me as any little bit helps and I want the eggs that come from chickens not fed with antibiotics and better healthwise.

 

[Daidohead]

I almost break even on feed costs. 6 hens, 2 roo's, 4-5 eggs a day. I go through about 40# of crumbles and 20# of scratch a month. My birds free range for 4-6 hours a day.

The big pay-off with my ladies is the is the entertainment, better than TV.

 

[HEChicken]

Free-ranging helps a lot and giving kitchen scraps to supplement the feed. You can also try asking local stores/restaurants for food scraps. I showed up to Christmas dinner with a baggie to carry home all the scraps from my in-laws house. They're used to me by now....

 

[cybercat]

Best thing to do is check your local yellow pages phone book. Look up under feed mill or feed store then call around. I get my feed out of KY for $10 a bag. I do not buy Purina it is way more expensive and not as fresh. A feed mill will be the cheapest since the make it local.

 

[kcfuerst]

Cost: $13 per month in feed pellets, $7 for 4-6 months of wood chips, nominal annual amount for wormers and treats
Income: $3 a dozen for eggs x 2 per week =$24 per month covering most of the cost of feed and miscellaneous supplies

When considering getting chickens and after studying the care and maintenance of these delightful feathered friends, I made sure to do a couple or three things:

1) figure out what I could afford to build to comfortably and safely house the number of hens I was permitted to have
2) figure out the cost to properly keep them
3) consider if there were a market to sell future eggs and what the selling price might be to help cut my costs

After finding out whether I could afford them or not, then plans were made to acquire chicks accordingly. Common sense played a huge part in determining whether my plan could be carried out successfully. Had I not been able to sustain the proper care and feeding of my pets, I would have opted out of my plan.

While I realize not everyone may go to the extent that I did before blindly diving into a project, our pets may not have to have their lives or homes cut short or suffer because of poor planning if more of us put a little extra thought into our projects. I'm not bragging, I just have seen a lot posts at BYC over time from those who appeared not to have given this much consideration. Sadly, the ones who suffer in the end are our pets.

My recommendation to all would be to get out a pencil and paper to make some notes and compare it to your pocket book before subjecting yourself and your pets to uncertainty.

 

[arherp]

10$ is still alot of money, especially when compared to the negative profits. I tried free ranging, I lost 23 birds in one day. I do provide a large grassy run and offer scraps. Lots of negative money in my wallet.

 

[arherp]

Katie, good points, we posted simultaneusly(sp?)lol I guess. I agree, I spent a couple months finding the right coop design alone. There is quite a bit of work involved, but it seems like substandard feed and conditions is the only way anyone makes money with chickens (factory farming).

 

[CARS]

Make money??? No, but close to supporting themselves if I don't figure in my time. I sell my eggs way too cheap, a dollar a dozen but I get my feed a half-ton at a time so I am only paying $6.50 for 50lbs. Jan 1st, I am going to $1.50 a dozen so I will have to re-figure things and see if I come out ahead

Look at it this way, if I didn't have chores to do I would be spending my money on other, not so constructive things such as happy hour, the mall, etc.

 

[kota1369]

I dont think most of us make money on our chickens...... I am happy if I break even on a much healthy egg and the compost material is a huge bonus. I only have 4 chickens, so making money was not in the plans. At Tractor Supply I pay for Purina pellets around 12 bucks. My chickens free range daily for a couple hours when weather permits. Also, hoop houses are easy and cheap to make. You may want to try that so you can move them to new grass every other day or so. That way they have some protection from predators.
Good luck to you.

4 dogs and 4 city chickens