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

[Jac Jac]

@Molpet @ChocolateMouse Look at the thread title and only look at Shadrach's first post. Forget the rest of this thread. Try to ignore the blather. Just from the thread title and the first post, what questions are being asked.

There are two. I've pretty much ignored the eggs part of the question. A lot of people on this forum have enough experience to now that you don't need a lot of hens to get a lot of eggs. I actually think his estimate of six hens to average enough eggs for one a day and store them long enough so you can eat one a person a day for four people a bit low for practical reasons. But it's not worth the argument.

But his meat question is how many chickens do you need to produce 208 carcasses for eating in a year. That was the only question. In the first post he did not stipulate any other requirements. 208 carcasses a year. His word was "need", not what would be a practical number to use.

Most of the rest of the stuff in that first post I pretty much attribute to what he said in the quote below.



It's pretty easy to show, using reasonable assumptions, that all you need to produce 208 carcasses is one rooster, two hens, and two incubators. That's each hen lays 150 eggs per year for a total of 300 eggs and 70% of those eggs hatch and produce a butcher aged chicken. 210 carcasses. So my answer to how many chickens you need to produce 208 carcasses is three. These parent chickens and the offspring can be raised in humane conditions. It doesn't have to be factory type conditions. I think many of us that raise chickens for meat understand that.

I don't consider three practical because you'd be starting a new batch of eggs in the incubator every week. It could take a lot of brooders. But if you add in enough hens to that flock to also produce eggs to eat, you could start a new incubator batch every three or four weeks. A lot more practical.

All this stuff about requiring the chicks to be hatched and raised by a broody and all that other stuff is just stuff added later. It does not address the original question. As far as I'm concerned adding these restrictions later is like changing the rules of a game at halftime to favor the home team.

My apologies for not seeing/reading the OP before I added my 3 cents. Far be it from me to cause a stir with only a portion of the argument presented. Please accept my apology for going off half cocked, I still stand by what I posted just want to be clear I didn't have all the details. Thanks for clarification on the issue. This is a lesson learned on my behalf.

 

[Jac Jac]

Was anyone thinking they are making a difference overall with their own decisions? There are billions of chickens produced in the corporate farming structure. It’s naive to think we can stop corporate farming, there are TOO many people! But, we absolutely can collectively make corporate farming practices “better.”

it’s about making a difference for you and your family. It’s about adding up small differences from multiple people over time to create watershed moments where change starts to happen. Eventually you’re at 1 percent of people, then 2. At five percent, certain companies will take notice, and 20, a lot more will.

the amount depends on what kinds of chicken you are raising, too. I’d need 5 plus chickens per week if they were dual purpose, but just 2 hybrid broilers.... I have not replaced all of my protein sources overall with my chicken, but, I have stopped eating any chicken but the ones what I raise. So that’s been about 100 chickens for the year for two of us and a toddler.

eggs I have found that we could keep ourselves fed from six heritage hens IF we did something like freeze them in the summer for the molting season. We typically eat maybe not quite an egg a day per person.

I like this answer a lot. This is what I'm talking about, making a difference as best you an with the resources you have available. Thank you for your input.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I shouldn't really need to point this out but Ridgrunners assertion that you only need 3 chickens, one rooster and two hens and two incubators is such nonsense given the question. At some point you need more chickens and for a period of time you will need to keep them.

Can we use your number of 208 carcasses a year so at least that part is consistent? Or are you really interested in consistency?

I don't know what age you would butcher. To me four months is kind of young, I usually target butchering at five months, the carcass is a decent size by then. I'll use 6 months to make the math easier and give a larger number. And I'll assume a fairly consistent number of chicks each month. Even using incubators it wouldn't work that way but it would be a lot smoother flow that depending on broody hens only. So assuming an average six month butcher age I'd be keeping half the 208 or 104 plus my three to produce them so I'd keep at any one time 107. That's actually about twice the number I keep now at the peak of the season. There would be a couple of extras that could be used as replacements for my laying/breeding flock. But then I'd eat the older ones. Sort of a wash so take these numbers as "about". If I use a 4 month average butcher age that comes to 72 alive at any one time. Five month butcher age comes to about 87 plus 3 or 90.

If you want to know how many lived at any one time I'd have 208 plus the three to produce them for a total of 211. If I were planning this the important information would be how many are alive at any one time because that's what I'd have to prepare for. And how many I'd butcher and store at one time. To me that is pertinent information. How many total number of chickens I might have over the course of the year is pretty irrelevant as far as practical information.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I just read this and I'm flabbergasted how food waste would account for less needed pounds of meat. As food waste is a contingency of life and storage of food, there is only so much you can do to reduce that waste. Therefore, if anything it would *add* to that number, not subtract from it.

If you're raising your own, from my experience you're much less likely to waste the food you produce simply out of the knowledge and effort of what went into it. Additionally, you don't produce a lot more than you need. If you have more chickens ready to be butchered than you want to butcher for your needs, you can leave those animals ALIVE in a small setting - no food spoilage or waste involved. And you don't need to just get rid of them all to make room for the next batch if a buyer doesn't want them because you're just growing for yourself in this scenario.

From farm to finish America has (up to) 40% food waste. Another one of the reasons is all the steps along the way. Something got left out by someone here, something just didn't sell over there, something had something dropped on or contaminated. The more steps you have, the more room for error. When you're taking an animal from your own back yard to the freezer a TON of the production steps are eliminated and the room for error drops dramatically. This is seen across a lot of large scale productions.

 

[Shadrach]

If you're raising your own, from my experience you're much less likely to waste the food you produce simply out of the knowledge and effort of what went into it. Additionally, you don't produce a lot more than you need. If you have more chickens ready to be butchered than you want to butcher for your needs, you can leave those animals ALIVE in a small setting - no food spoilage or waste involved. And you don't need to just get rid of them all to make room for the next batch if a buyer doesn't want them because you're just growing for yourself in this scenario.

From carcass to finish America has 40% food waste. Another one of the reasons is all the steps along the way. Something got left out by someone here, something just didn't sell over there, something had something dropped on or contaminated. The more steps you have, the more room for error. When you're taking an animal from your own back yard to the freezer a TON of the production steps are eliminated and the room for error drops dramatically. This is seen across a lot of large scale productions.

Now this I can agree with.

 

[Shadrach]

Can we use your number of 208 carcasses a year so at least that part is consistent? Or are you really interested in consistency?

I don't know what age you would butcher. To me four months is kind of young, I usually target butchering at five months, the carcass is a decent size by then. I'll use 6 months to make the math easier and give a larger number. And I'll assume a fairly consistent number of chicks each month. Even using incubators it wouldn't work that way but it would be a lot smoother flow that depending on broody hens only. So assuming an average six month butcher age I'd be keeping half the 208 or 104 plus my three to produce them so I'd keep at any one time 107. That's actually about twice the number I keep now at the peak of the season. There would be a couple of extras that could be used as replacements for my laying/breeding flock. But then I'd eat the older ones. Sort of a wash so take these numbers as "about". If I use a 4 month average butcher age that comes to 72 alive at any one time. Five month butcher age comes to about 87 plus 3 or 90.

If you want to know how many lived at any one time I'd have 208 plus the three to produce them for a total of 211. If I were planning this the important information would be how many are alive at any one time because that's what I'd have to prepare for. And how many I'd butcher and store at one time. To me that is pertinent information. How many total number of chickens I might have over the course of the year is pretty irrelevant as far as practical information.

I can't see the point in debating this further with you ridgerunner.
Go back to my OP and read carefully what I've written, including the title.
Pay particular attention to this.

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.

And this.

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.

This is quite important as well. You could if you wish read incubator rather than hatchery.

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.

The above indicates I'm not considering incubator hatching and that a self sustaining flock is the objective.

further 100 hens going broody each year and producing four chicks per hen, plus of course the roosters needed to fertilize the eggs.

So apparently I'm looking at the unreliability of broody hens and although not explicitly stated.
So here again I'm noting that these are assumed figures in the model I've given.

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.

CM has pointed out that such a model is not really relevant to the majority of backyard chicken keepers in the USA. I have no problem with this.
He later produced a model that fits more closely to how he believes the average backyard chicken keeper in the USA would go about the problem.
It's not a bad model and I accept the numbers. However, it has little relevance to the model I've outlined because it involves the use of incubators, much heavier hens and staged production.
Nobody has argued that the math is wrong. What the heat seems to be over is the assumptions used in the model and of course the perceived slur on backyard chicken keeping.
I have absolutely no idea what proportion of back yard keepers keep their chickens as pets that lay eggs, or as meat and egg providers or as self powered rotovators.
The thing is the model is relevant here up a mountain in Catalonia.

 

[Conan]

The thing is the model is relevant here up a mountain in Catalonia.

Suppose you might have just prefaced your original post with this statement.

I've read a lot of your posts and articles, and I often find your views on keeping chickens very thought provoking. I do find value in the different point of view. I'll be honest. This thread isn't one of them, though your definition of a yard had me giggling like a school girl, and for that I thank you.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

*She. Or they if you don't know, please.

Basically Ridgerunner the only numbers Shad cares about are his mountain ranged game chickens. Anyone else's numbers are irrelevant. But also read the title and provide an answer that fits your situation using those numbers even if his numbers don't fit.
Also don't offend him. But be blunt and don't censor yourself. And also don't post insults to him but it's OK to call people delusional cause if that's upset you it's your fault for having perceived a slight. And also argue the numbers, but also don't use relevant numbers. And also only use american eating/production statistics and also only use a spanish mountain game chickens model....! Also this model is only relevant for spain, that's why he referenced american statistics so much. Also my broody model uses incubators(???) and that's why you're wrong Ridgerunner! Also he can't be wrong because he can do addition!

That's about what I'm getting out of this. Goodness gracious. The gymnastics in that last post! The effort to justify this as an arguable reality for chicken keepers trying to make a dent in commercial production or feed themselves from their own property...
It really sounds like, Shad, the only person here who can't make a difference by raising chickens... Is you. And given that you live in a mountain range in spain with tons of free ranging game chickens, I hardly think you have to worry about trying to feed yourself from a commercial american grocery store or trying to make a dent in that production.
The rest of us are dandy.

 

[Shadrach]

Suppose you might have just prefaced your original post with this statement.

I've read a lot of your posts and articles, and I often find your views on keeping chickens very thought provoking. I do find value in the different point of view. I'll be honest. This thread isn't one of them, though your definition of a yard had me giggling like a school girl, and for that I thank you.

I could have done it better I admit.
Given you've been so polite I'll explain that I had a few models banging around my head when I wrote the original post. I really wanted to discuss the model. While I've modeled a lot with math years ago there are so many things to think about for this project that I botched up the post getting numbers and opinions mixed up.
Not to worry. It's just a thread on the Internet and hopefully I'll make a better job next time around.

 

[Shadrach]

*She. Or they if you don't know, please.

Basically Ridgerunner the only numbers Shad cares about are his mountain ranged game chickens. Anyone else's numbers are irrelevant. But also read the title and provide an answer that fits your situation using those numbers even if his numbers don't fit.
Also don't offend him. But be blunt and don't censor yourself. And also don't post insults to him but it's OK to call people delusional cause if that's upset you it's your fault for having perceived a slight. And also argue the numbers, but also don't use relevant numbers. And also only use american eating/production statistics and also only use a spanish mountain game chickens model....! Also this model is only relevant for spain, that's why he referenced american statistics so much. Also my broody model uses incubators(???) and that's why you're wrong Ridgerunner! Also he can't be wrong because he can do addition!

That's about what I'm getting out of this. Goodness gracious. The gymnastics in that last post! The effort to justify this as an arguable reality for chicken keepers trying to make a dent in commercial production or feed themselves from their own property...
It really sounds like, Shad, the only person here who can't make a difference by raising chickens... Is you. And given that you live in a mountain range in spain with tons of free ranging game chickens, I hardly think you have to worry about trying to feed yourself from a commercial american grocery store or trying to make a dent in that production.
The rest of us are dandy.

I think I'm going to break a rule and put you on ignore. You will be the first person on BYC that I will have done this with.
I can't see anything constructive in anything you've contributed to this thread. It's been one pointless attack after another.