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

[mandelyn]

When we get more land we're going to be after a small herd of Highland cattle, I had read about them and then went and met some that a friend has, they're cute without being too cute. The ones I met weren't friendly, on purpose. All I got was a hand sniff from one of them. I can see where you wouldn't want to get too chummy if you had dinner plans for them.

This past season my brother raised two hogs and we were gifted some. The difference was incredible, between the color and flavor of the meat it blows my mind that the hog market is as low as it is. Weanlings routinely going for $30-$50 each around here. Is it because the cost just doesn't compare with the ease of factory farmed store bought pork? I had pet pigs (little ones) and I can't imagine their minds in a factory farmed setting. I wonder if those giant whites they use commercially have a dramatically different demeanor to handle that. I think pigs are too smart to be farmed like that.

I tried being vegetarian but it threw my hormones out of whack and I can't be without either beef or iron pills. Even if we had a space large enough for the number of chickens to be the sole protein, I'd still need to get red meat.

It's unrealistic to eat meat with every single meal, variety and vegetables/grains with meat as an add-on. We can make a whole chicken last a week if we crockpot cook it, shred it down, add to rice and veggies... roll that into a burrito with cheese, toast for 10 minutes to make the tortilla crispy. We rotate between that and a beef chili, doing a week's worth of cooking at once with other stuff to break it up so that it's not the same every day.

When we do chili with beef, it also has 3 types of beans, Celery, Chard, Kale, Spinach, Onions, Garlic, Carrots (shredded), Tomato, Peppers and a slew of spices. Sometimes a little bit of rice to stretch it further. We call it "nutrient dense" chili and it'll wake your digestive system right on up, in a good way.

 

[Shadrach]

It’s just the not wanting to take anyone else viewpoint and this line from the first post....

“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.”


to tell someone who has, say, any amount of chickens, to feed their family that it’s delusional to think they’re making a difference is just not true. Change starts small.

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.

 

[Shadrach]

I've been to Scotland - could barely understand a word.... Are your sure that's English??? Traded one beautiful landscape for another.

I don't think you are alone in wondering if the Scottish actually speak English.

 

[Shadrach]

This is based off of a family eating entirely eggs and chicken. I know mine eat other meat sources... Deer, duck, quail, pork. All hunted or raised by my family. We are self sufficient that's for sure!

Indeed. Not many people these days rely on just chickens to supply their meat protein.
It was more common here where I live years ago. Often it was one pig which got slaughtered each year and chicken filled in the gaps. Basically the subsistence farmers here relied on beans, vegetables, and nuts to supply their protein requirements.

 

[aart]

I think this debate reflects the sheer abundance and choices we have today.

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

I think eating chicken back then was probably a luxury...as were the eggs.

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.

It may not make a tich of difference in the whole food system scenario, but it can make a huge difference to individuals and families and how they view the food system. ...which really was the point of backyard chickens in the first place, until anthropomorpism kicked in.
The world is rife with delusion, no doubt much right here on BYC too.

 

[Shadrach]

When we get more land we're going to be after a small herd of Highland cattle, I had read about them and then went and met some that a friend has, they're cute without being too cute. The ones I met weren't friendly, on purpose. All I got was a hand sniff from one of them. I can see where you wouldn't want to get too chummy if you had dinner plans for them.

This past season my brother raised two hogs and we were gifted some. The difference was incredible, between the color and flavor of the meat it blows my mind that the hog market is as low as it is. Weanlings routinely going for $30-$50 each around here. Is it because the cost just doesn't compare with the ease of factory farmed store bought pork? I had pet pigs (little ones) and I can't imagine their minds in a factory farmed setting. I wonder if those giant whites they use commercially have a dramatically different demeanor to handle that. I think pigs are too smart to be farmed like that.

I tried being vegetarian but it threw my hormones out of whack and I can't be without either beef or iron pills. Even if we had a space large enough for the number of chickens to be the sole protein, I'd still need to get red meat.

It's unrealistic to eat meat with every single meal, variety and vegetables/grains with meat as an add-on. We can make a whole chicken last a week if we crockpot cook it, shred it down, add to rice and veggies... roll that into a burrito with cheese, toast for 10 minutes to make the tortilla crispy. We rotate between that and a beef chili, doing a week's worth of cooking at once with other stuff to break it up so that it's not the same every day.

When we do chili with beef, it also has 3 types of beans, Celery, Chard, Kale, Spinach, Onions, Garlic, Carrots (shredded), Tomato, Peppers and a slew of spices. Sometimes a little bit of rice to stretch it further. We call it "nutrient dense" chili and it'll wake your digestive system right on up, in a good way.

We have a flock of 6 sheep here. We used to have a ram to go with them.
Cattle are great if you have the room. I suppose a lot will depend on the conditions one is prepared to keep any animal in as to how many animals one can fit on a particular plot of land.
In the end the sheep proved to be a very expensive way of providing meat.

 

[Shadrach]

I think eating chicken back then was probably a luxury...as were the eggs.

It may not make a tich of difference in the whole food system scenario, but it can make a huge difference to individuals and families and how they view the food system. ...which really was the point of backyard chickens in the first place, until anthropomorpism kicked in.
The world is rife with delusion, no doubt much right here on BYC too.

Yup, I agree with this completely. I eat very little meat mainly because I object to the way commercially produced meat is kept and processed.

 

[Mimi13]

I don't see where he required 500 chickens to make a difference in the industrial chicken market. The OP was providing a calculation of chickens required to meet dietary protein needs. The thread sometimes mixed into the commercial marketplace, but I, for one, see only a debate on chicken "math" and nothing self righteous.

X2

 

[Peepsi]

I'm raising chickens for meat and eggs and we use 1 chicken a week for 2 people. Those chickens are used in various ways not just baked or bbq'd and eaten. They provide us with several meals. The carcass is boiled and the broth used for other things. The bones go into the compost pile.

It may not make a big dent in anything, but it makes ME feel good and that's good enough.

This would be my situation as well, if I were to raise chickens for meat. My husband and I together do not eat more than 1 chicken a week, if that. There are so many other food options (as someone else had said in an earlier post) that do not even involve other forms of farm animal meat (beans, pasta, veggies, fresh-caught fish from a trout stream, etc).

52 meat birds a year would be MORE than enough for us, two people. Realistically, I think the number for us would be around 40 chickens eaten a year between the two of us, so that's 20 chickens a year, per person. According to your model, we would need 80 birds for a family of four....and that's assuming that the two kids are hitting puberty (Two parents with two toddlers would certainly not need 20 chickens per year per toddler, as toddlers don't eat that much).

So yes, I think people really can raise meat birds for themselves and their families, and not actually buy meat in the store (other than occasional fish and shrimp, if they don't have access to a body of water to get their own fish). It just depends on how much meat you eat as a whole.

Now...people who eat meat with every single meal...that's another story, LOL.

 

[Mimi13]

I don't think you are alone in wondering if the Scottish actually speak English.

You need to post a video of a tour of your chickens with you talking. It would be interesting. Now me, I’d sound like a hillbilly country bumpkin.