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

[ChocolateMouse]

Seems I must somehow fit into the above category ... or maybe just too dumb to figure it out???

I mean who in their right mind goes out and plans to raise chickens for meat, designs a model, and chooses a breed that dresses out at a whole whopping pound???

The same person who designs a model around needing 100 chickens to produce 400-500 chicks each year.
Or who can only squeeze four chicks under their broodies.

I'm getting the feeling that their chickens must all be extremely unimpressive carcass birds. Like they've gotta be eating leghorns at best.

Leghorns general refusal to go broody would also explain needing 100 birds to get 500 chicks. So maybe they are.

 

[mandelyn]

This thread sure got hilarious in a hurry.

 

[kiwi-chick]

It would be interesting to go back to say, 1850, to see how much animal protein people were eating and how they were acquiring it. I suspect that, without refrigeration, chickens, along with fish and small game like rabbits, were going to be the main protein source for a lot of people. Were most rural people keeping 100s of chickens, to ensure full chicken dinners multiple times a week? I tend to doubt it.

It really depends on how far you go back. Most old time farmers did not eat producing stock, they would eat the cockerels and the calves and every few years would replace the producing stock with new ones. - In the history of the UK chicken was a seldom eaten treat. Only with mass production did eating chicken on a regular basis become common.

I suspect they were they eating one chicken a week and a lot of potatoes.

And a whole bucket full of beans.... which also provide a whole bucket full of protein.

 

[Shadrach]

I have never made any claims about being in my right mind.
I'll try to stop teasing.....

 

[123RedBeard]

Or who can only squeeze four chicks under their broodies.

Well ... by my rough calculations ... a chicken that dresses out at one pound, might be 1.5 pounds live weight ... which is gonna be one tiny bird ... definitely not a buxom butted Orpington ... so he might be right about only four eggs, just doest sound like the most optimal choice for a meat bird sustainable project!

Some of the bantams will go broody, and those that do ... will want to 3-6 times a year ... but even bantam variety of a meat bird, like the Cornish, or Plymouth Rocks are much bigger than the puny 1.5 pound scrawny chickens suggested in the model of the OP! About TWICE that actually!

 

[Shadrach]

The same person who designs a model around needing 100 chickens to produce 400-500 chicks each year.
Or who can only squeeze four chicks under their broodies.

I'm getting the feeling that their chickens must all be extremely unimpressive carcass birds. Like they've gotta be eating leghorns at best.

Leghorns general refusal to go broody would also explain needing 100 birds to get 500 chicks. So maybe they are.

Leghorns are essentially battery chickens. They do not fare particularly well free ranging, don't tend to go broody easily and because of the breeding criteria that has produced them, don't tend to live very long. They do lay lots of eggs and carry a good weight.

The idea here is to set up a semi feral flock that will reproduce itself.
The breed needs to be very predator aware and fast enough to evade hawk attacks in particular. Maximising meat per bird isn't an issue.
The two breeds being considered are Fayoumies and Hamburgs.
Both these breeds are excellent foragers and if acquired from Middle Eastern countries, or North African countries they are not likely to have the genetic problems that are often associated with USA hatchery stock. Fayoumies fare well here where I live.
If part of the strategy is too produce pictures of beautiful looking birds that resemble game fowl and have excellent predator evading skills, low maintenance costs and feed costs, will survive roosting in trees in the event that they are reluctant to use the provided shelter, will go broody and make good mothers, have decent inter flock social skills and are apparently still highly adaptive birds then the picture is rather different.
The people that keep Fayoumies here state that a clutch size of 4 to 6 eggs is what produces the maximum number of adult birds from the hatch. More chicks and they tend not to survive. Apparently both Fayoumies and Hamburgs still have good hatching and rearing skills. This means fewer staggered hatches and higher hatch survival rates with fewer sick of weak chicks.
So, there are lots of important criteria apart from how much meat one can squeeze out of one bird and how many eggs they lay.
What the customer at these restaurants is prepared to pay top money for (according to the market research) is a meal form a chicken that could with a small stretch of the imagination be a wild chicken.
Because of the above criteria a flock that reproduces itself and remains stable which can operate as a closed flock becomes important. The best way to achieve this is to have elder birds teaching the younger birds. It also helps with flock dynamics and genetics if you let the senior hens sit and hatch the next generation and eat the offspring.
There are lots of other points relevant to keeping a closed free range semi feral flock that do not make any sense to a keeper who replaces their birds by incubation or purchase.

 

[Matieus27]

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.

While you did a lot of math here. This is based on the assumption that every person is going to eat a whole chicken to themselves in my house I have 7 me my wife and five kids I can cook 2 whole chickens with mashed potatoes and green beans or corn and have chicken left over. Also a chicken a week and no other meat? And my chickens also lay and I’ve noticed we eat less eggs when the hens take a break for winter we still buy them but we eat significantly less when they aren’t laying. I myself do not keep chickens to upset the meat industry whatsoever I just think that it’s nice to have a meal to which you that animal was treated with respect through the whole process.

 

[123RedBeard]

Shad,

Sounds like you need to take with @ChickenCanoe ... on chicken breed ...
Sorry can't tag him ...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/members/chickencanoe.72519/

 

[NHMountainMan]

Wow. I think everyone is entitled to their opinions, and there are many ways to look at things. I think you could disagree without being disagreeable.


"My chickens can best up your chickens...".
I'm finding the debate between @Shadrach & @ChocolateMouse is way more interesting than the presidential debates.

But I do have to say that I think @ChocolateMouse has been on the fringe of personal attacks - basically "I didn't call YOU an idiot, I said your ACTED like an idiot"

 

[NHMountainMan]

I can't breathe

X2 ...