How many chickens would you need to keep to supply all the meat and eggs your family eats?

[mandelyn]

I agree. If I was to have my own chickens it would be for yet another reason, I like to study them. It wouldn't matter to me if they ran at a loss.

This, yes. I'm fascinated in how the genetics pan out. I have this young cockerel at the moment who wiggled his way right out of the crockpot. It's as if he heard me say "He's built too narrow" and knew he wasn't making it to the breeding pen. He's an F2 Olive Egger, so he'd only have value if he was born a female or if he was a well built bird. He might fill out a little bit but his legs aren't going to get any farther apart for that width of body.

He makes up for it in personality. It wasn't nurture that did it, I'm hands off with the boys when they're chicks, so that they don't get over-familiar when they get older. The girls too, I let chickens come to me on their own. Some do. Most don't.

Anyways. This cockerel got snatched up out of a grow out pen and tossed in the with cockerels/turkey grow outs once he started taking out his hormones on a pullet too roughly/too early at 3.5 months old. He needed his reality check. That was the first time I held him and talked to him.

After that, he's been acting like we're friends. Now at about 4.5 months old he comes when called with "Rooster, where are you?" and he comes chattering up to my feet. He flies onto my arm on command. He flies onto things I motion at with my hand. He helps put the Turkeys to bed, then acts like I'm supposed to go in too. He acts like I'm flock. Today he did it for my husband too. So now... I guess there's a pet rooster in the making. A mascot of sorts. We'll see.

I've grown out and eaten about 55 cockerels this year. This one found a way to be special. There are 4 other cockerels who made it through, on merit for how well they "chicken" and how well they reflect their variety. A cull bird found a way to humanize himself, likely unbeknownst to him, so now here he sits, on my lap. As chatty as he could be.

Honestly, it's ridiculous. Reprieve granted. Good thing he wasn't born a CornishX?

 

[CindyinSD]

This, yes. I'm fascinated in how the genetics pan out. I have this young cockerel at the moment who wiggled his way right out of the crockpot. It's as if he heard me say "He's built too narrow" and knew he wasn't making it to the breeding pen. He's an F2 Olive Egger, so he'd only have value if he was born a female or if he was a well built bird. He might fill out a little bit but his legs aren't going to get any farther apart for that width of body.

He makes up for it in personality. It wasn't nurture that did it, I'm hands off with the boys when they're chicks, so that they don't get over-familiar when they get older. The girls too, I let chickens come to me on their own. Some do. Most don't.

Anyways. This cockerel got snatched up out of a grow out pen and tossed in the with cockerels/turkey grow outs once he started taking out his hormones on a pullet too roughly/too early at 3.5 months old. He needed his reality check. That was the first time I held him and talked to him.

After that, he's been acting like we're friends. Now at about 4.5 months old he comes when called with "Rooster, where are you?" and he comes chattering up to my feet. He flies onto my arm on command. He flies onto things I motion at with my hand. He helps put the Turkeys to bed, then acts like I'm supposed to go in too. He acts like I'm flock. Today he did it for my husband too. So now... I guess there's a pet rooster in the making. A mascot of sorts. We'll see.

I've grown out and eaten about 55 cockerels this year. This one found a way to be special. There are 4 other cockerels who made it through, on merit for how well they "chicken" and how well they reflect their variety. A cull bird found a way to humanize himself, likely unbeknownst to him, so now here he sits, on my lap. As chatty as he could be.

View attachment 1963624

Honestly, it's ridiculous. Reprieve granted. Good thing he wasn't born a CornishX?

He’s pretty! You ought to enter him in the rooster photo contest.

 

[Rose Quartz]

Before anyone else states they can supply their family with enough chicken meat to supply their families protein requirements from x number of chickens....
I'll take 6 chickens as an example.
6 dead chickens will as a rough average supply you with 6 x 140 grams equals 840 grams of protein.
Divide this by 60 which is the upper limit of protein requirements per day, gives you 14 days of chicken based protein.
To supply 60 grams of chicken based protein for a year you need 60 grams of protein per day for 365 days equals 21900 grams for one years supply for one person.
You can't get 21900 grams of protein out of less than 156 chickens at 140 grams per chicken.
For a family of 4, which was my original model that's 156 chickens per person. 4 x 156 equals 625 chickens.
There really isn't any getting around this. How you produce that many chickens each year is another matter, be it by incubating eggs and growing chickens until they reach their full bodyweight, or by buying them at a store. The fact is you have to have the chickens to eat to supply that amount of protein.

Next, there is what constitutes a meat eater.
I don't tend to call myself a meat eater because I eat very little meat, I'm closer to a vegetarian in reality but I do eat meat.
It seems reasonable to define a meat eater as someone who supplies over half their protein intake by consuming meat. I think this is reasonable because if I go into a restaurant and order a meat dish over half of the protein will be supplied by the meat and not the vegetables. As an example, if I order chicken chips with a salad, a common dish here, I'll get a chicken breast which on average has 30 grams of protein. The chips and salad may contribute 5 or 6 grams.
Taking the above into consideration supplying half or more of ones protein intake with meat seems to be a reasonable definition of a meat eater for the purpose of this discussion.
Lots of people eat like this, supplying at least half their protein requirements with meat.
So, for one person defined as a meat eater for one year they need to consume 78 chickens.
For a family of 4 on the borderline of vegetable or meat based, this gives 312 chickens per year.
Given the restaurant example above where maybe 80% of the protein is supplied by meat then 400 chickens per year seems reasonable.
What seems to be being overlooked is it doesn't really matter which model you take you need a particular number of dead chickens to supply a given amount of protein. A flock of 6 or 7 can't do it. You can make a flock of 6 or 7 produce more chickens by whatever method but the numbers still work. You need so many chickens to produce a given amount of protein.

I'm confused. Grams of protein or meat? Because 140 grams of meat is only one chicken breast as bought at the store. (approximately) Admittedly home grown birds from lets say excess males from a layer flock, aren't going to have as much meat on them. But, it's way more than 140 grams. Then again, I spotted a whole chicken at the grocery store last week that I could easily pick up and wrap my one hand around. Soo, maybe you're going off of store bought sizes for chickens. I wouldn't butcher larger breeds when they were only the size of my bantams.

 

[Mimi13]

This, yes. I'm fascinated in how the genetics pan out. I have this young cockerel at the moment who wiggled his way right out of the crockpot. It's as if he heard me say "He's built too narrow" and knew he wasn't making it to the breeding pen. He's an F2 Olive Egger, so he'd only have value if he was born a female or if he was a well built bird. He might fill out a little bit but his legs aren't going to get any farther apart for that width of body.

He makes up for it in personality. It wasn't nurture that did it, I'm hands off with the boys when they're chicks, so that they don't get over-familiar when they get older. The girls too, I let chickens come to me on their own. Some do. Most don't.

Anyways. This cockerel got snatched up out of a grow out pen and tossed in the with cockerels/turkey grow outs once he started taking out his hormones on a pullet too roughly/too early at 3.5 months old. He needed his reality check. That was the first time I held him and talked to him.

After that, he's been acting like we're friends. Now at about 4.5 months old he comes when called with "Rooster, where are you?" and he comes chattering up to my feet. He flies onto my arm on command. He flies onto things I motion at with my hand. He helps put the Turkeys to bed, then acts like I'm supposed to go in too. He acts like I'm flock. Today he did it for my husband too. So now... I guess there's a pet rooster in the making. A mascot of sorts. We'll see.

I've grown out and eaten about 55 cockerels this year. This one found a way to be special. There are 4 other cockerels who made it through, on merit for how well they "chicken" and how well they reflect their variety. A cull bird found a way to humanize himself, likely unbeknownst to him, so now here he sits, on my lap. As chatty as he could be.

View attachment 1963624

Honestly, it's ridiculous. Reprieve granted. Good thing he wasn't born a CornishX?

Awe! How wonderful.

 

[Rose Quartz]

What about other foods....and how their commercial production and processing impacts the earth and the people who work in that industry?
Or is it only animal welfare that concerns you?

You made me snort. I'm totally taking this as you being funny. But that is an actual serious point you made here.

I grew up with my mom taking me to work with her picking strawberries. Now that all her kids are grown and out of the house, she picks strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples, and peaches.

On the perspective of how it affects the people who work there, she practically kills her self to get enough money to make it worth the trip to the field. She works from dawn to dusk with out a break unless it rains, she doesn't take water with her because she would have to carry it, she's allowed to eat any fruit that's there if she wants (But she really doesn't, because anything she eats she doesn't get paid for picking) The only food she takes with her is usually apples, because they're hydrating and fit in her pocket. Berry season is middle of summer and it's humid and gets up to about 34C (93F) I have no idea how she's still doing it.

 

[Rose Quartz]

Probably was me. We steal back and forth all the time. Like "romance meets reality". I may have stolen those from someone else, maybe 40 years ago when I was working or from someone else on here. Or they may be original with me.

I don't even consider the quarts of broth I make when talking about eating chickens. Or the picked chicken meat from making that broth. I figure most people aren't going to go to that much trouble. If you don't know what you are missing you don't know what you are missing.

huh, and here I thought every one did that. Cause, why wouldn't you? If my family is sick of chicken the broth and left overs end up in a rubbermaid and go in the freezer for soup some other time when I want an easy supper.

 

[Chickassan]

That is a smart one, total keeper.

This, yes. I'm fascinated in how the genetics pan out. I have this young cockerel at the moment who wiggled his way right out of the crockpot. It's as if he heard me say "He's built too narrow" and knew he wasn't making it to the breeding pen. He's an F2 Olive Egger, so he'd only have value if he was born a female or if he was a well built bird. He might fill out a little bit but his legs aren't going to get any farther apart for that width of body.

He makes up for it in personality. It wasn't nurture that did it, I'm hands off with the boys when they're chicks, so that they don't get over-familiar when they get older. The girls too, I let chickens come to me on their own. Some do. Most don't.

Anyways. This cockerel got snatched up out of a grow out pen and tossed in the with cockerels/turkey grow outs once he started taking out his hormones on a pullet too roughly/too early at 3.5 months old. He needed his reality check. That was the first time I held him and talked to him.

After that, he's been acting like we're friends. Now at about 4.5 months old he comes when called with "Rooster, where are you?" and he comes chattering up to my feet. He flies onto my arm on command. He flies onto things I motion at with my hand. He helps put the Turkeys to bed, then acts like I'm supposed to go in too. He acts like I'm flock. Today he did it for my husband too. So now... I guess there's a pet rooster in the making. A mascot of sorts. We'll see.

I've grown out and eaten about 55 cockerels this year. This one found a way to be special. There are 4 other cockerels who made it through, on merit for how well they "chicken" and how well they reflect their variety. A cull bird found a way to humanize himself, likely unbeknownst to him, so now here he sits, on my lap. As chatty as he could be.

View attachment 1963624

Honestly, it's ridiculous. Reprieve granted. Good thing he wasn't born a CornishX?

 

[EggWalrus]

I'll try and address this.
These are 2014 figures. 21,917,808 chickens per day in the USA.
Roughly 8 billion per year.
As can be seen from some of the replies in this thread, some people may eat one chicken per week from their backyard flock, many much less.
If you believe that has any impact on the commercial production that's up to you.
I don't think it does. I've looked for reliable figures on how many chickens are eaten by backyard keepers but there is no reliable data.
My point is you are not feeding your family with the chickens you keep. This is what the numbers prove. The contribution to the food a family needs from backyard chickens is very very small unless, over the year, unless you have killed the numbers mentioned above.
There are lots of reasons for keeping chickens. Believing you are making a difference to the amount produced by the commercial concerns is in my view delusional.

I don't give 3 shakes of a lambs tail about what you think your numbers show. There's a lot you aren't taking into consideration. If, according to your numbers, everyone ate chicken at the same rate in the US,
It would come out to about 26 chickens per person (man, woman, and child) per year. Some people don't eat chicken just cause they don't like the taste or chickens gross them out (they are very nasty animals). Then you have vagitarians. But you also have some that chicken breast (and only breast) is the only meat they eat.
Do you know what that means?
It doesn't mean jack shiite!
The people that raise backyard flocks to eat aren't about "ending commercial chicken production". They just want to raise some meat that they know the birds lived good, are healthy, and are good for the human.
And it doesn't have to be those ridiculous large numbers or a hatchery. You do need more birds than a few dozen for a "self sustaining flock" though. Between what you eat, predators eat, sickness, and natural causes, a four person family would need at least 50, but probably closer to 100 (or more), depending on breed, and how much bird the family eats. And yes, you would need several crops of birds per year. If you had a few dozen of a breed that stayed broody, you could replace the birds you eat as you go, and hope predators don't wipe you out. And other than a few Chickatarians, no one that eats meat, eats only chicken.
To be self sufficient you would need more than just chickens. You'd need other farm animals, need to hunt and fish, grow gardens year round successfully, and sell any excess produce and livestock for money to buy things you either can't grow because of your local climate/soil/environment, or you simply lack the knowledge and skills to grow.
Like I said, there seems to be a lot you're not taking into consideration with your numbers. And really, who cares? I haven't bought store-bought chicken in years and years and years. So if I'm not feeding my family with the chickens I raise, just where the hell do you think I'm getting the chicken I feed my family with ?
I'm not calling you an idiot, but you definitely have been educated beyond your own intelligence.

 

[Shadrach]

The problem with the numbers is that ONE can't make a dent. More and more people are raising their own food, whether it's eggs and a garden, eggs and meat, or all 3. Millions of people HAVE changed the egg industry to some degree in the US; it's not perfect but it has definitely changed. As more people come on board to raise their own meat, or buy from local sources where the animals are treated well, it will drive change too. So no, ONE can't really make a dent, but millions can and do.

I think it gets overlooked that for the majority of people raising their own food just isn't a viable proposition. I don't know what the proportion of city/suburban dwellers is in the USA but between lack of space and regulation I would think it's a fairly small proportion that could get anywhere near to self sufficiency.
I agree, that millions would make a difference but my belief is it's pressure from the consumers rather than a minority who raise a few chickens that could improve the conditions in commercial egg and meat production.
The most obvious answer is to not buy the products. Once again I don't know what criteria is used when chickens are described by the suppliers as free range. In Europe when you look at the regulations that allow suppliers to advertise their products as free range and all the other variations the reality is pretty shocking.
https://www.chickencheck.in/faq/free-range-chicken/

 

[BDutch]

I read a lot of posts where people say they keep chickens so they can supply meat and eggs for their families.

Take a family of four. I’m going to take an arbitrary minimum of one chicken per person per week as the point where one can still call oneself a regular eater of meat. This if managed right could supply roughly 4 servings of meat cuts per person per week, providing roughly 30 grams of protein per serving. You may be able to increase this by one more serving by making full use of the bird by making a broth/stew.

There are various estimates depending on size and body part for the amount of protein in a chicken.

I’ve taken 140 grams of protein per bird as a reasonable estimate if the entire chicken is eaten.

The recommended amount of protein per day for the average adult is 50/60 grams.

So eating one chicken per week per person will supply you with half your protein requirements for four days to five days.

So, for one person this amounts to 52 chickens a year to cover their meat consumption (only eating chicken meat reared at home).

For a family of four that’s 208 chickens per year.

If you are primarily a meat eater and you want to supply your own meat and make any realistic claims about not supporting the meat industry you could be looking at 400+ chickens a year just to provide half your protein requirements from chicken meat.

While it is possible to replace 400 chickens each year from say a hatchery the more ethical and sensible approach would be to have a self sustaining flock. This mean rooster and some stock to breed next years chickens from; say a minimum of a further 100 hens going broody each year and producing four chicks per hen, plus of course the roosters needed to fertilize the eggs.

That gives a flock size of roughly 500 chickens to supply a bit over half a families protein from meat requirement each year.

So, a question for those who claim they are keeping chickens to put meat on the table for their family.
How many chickens do you keep?

My view, the claims about providing for the family and not supporting the meat industry are self righteous delusional nonsense....unless of course you have 500 chickens.

Yes, every little helps but the above should show just how small a contribution a backyard flock of say ten chickens makes to the reduction of commercially produced chicken meat. Basically it’s insignificant.

There is a noticeable divide when discussions on BYC get a bit heated between those who say they view their chickens as pets and those who often try to take the higher ground by calling them livestock for providing food for the family.

The numbers say that for people like myself who kill and eat the occasional chicken; for me I think the average is five a year, the difference we make to the reduction of commercially produced meant and all the ethical debate surrounding it is in reality non existent.

It may be possible to supply a family of four with all the eggs they consume in a year with a small backyard flock.

An egg a day per person works out as 28 eggs every week 52 weeks of the year. That’s 1456 eggs a year. Each egg will give on average 6 grams of protein, roughly one tenth of your protein requirements per day. That’ s rougly 6 hens capable of laying 250 eggs per year, every year for their lifespan.

Assuming the above figures are reasonable then the claims that backyard chicken keeping has any impact on the large commercial production of eggs and meat looks unrealistic to put it politely.

I didn't read the thread. But after reading this my first thought was: If you eat one egg a day you don't have to eat meat at all. Just make sure you eat enough green veggies. to stay healty.

Maybe old news?:
You could keep at least 6 hens that lay well. Get yourself a rooster and a hen of a breeding type (or an incubator). So you need only 8 chickens to start with.

Ofspring can maintain you're flock. Keep the pullets for maintenance. Eat the cockerels and make soup of old hens.