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

[Ridgerunner]

It's something I should do here but don't. I make bone an bits stew occasional. I don't have canning equipment here. How long does it last in a sealed jar?

If it is pressure canned, months if not years. But that is not you. It would have to be pressure canned, water bath canning would not do.

On the counter I would not trust it for more than few hours. In the fridge, maybe a week.

 

[Ebony Rose]

I raise both chickens and quail and determined that for me, living alone with my dogs and flocks, that a handful of chickens for the sheer enjoyment of having them with the bonus of some of their eggs to eat and 16 adult quail (for breeding) and their offspring (for meat) provides me with close to 30 pounds of meat per month, and 15 dozen quail eggs to eat. I love that I can go from hatch to the table in six to eight weeks with quail. The rest of the eggs are incubated to replenish the meat birds and a couple of times annually to replace my breeding stock. For me, this is totally sustainable. Costs me one 40kg bag of game bird feed per month ($23), and supplements both my diet, and that of my dogs who adore quail eggs served hard boiled, shell and all.
I do still have a carbon footprint, in that I enjoy beef and pork as well, and I do not raise them. If I had to live on nothing but what my flock provides, I could easily increase the number of breeders. I currently only use one of my three incubators, and have the other two as backup, so increasing the production wouldn't be an issue UNLESS the grid went down for more than a day. I have my incubator hooked up to my UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), and it's rated to power my computer, monitor, speakers, and modem for several hours, with the computer disconnected, it can keep the incubator going for over a day.
I really enjoyed your post, and the question presented, and agree that raising CHICKENS to feed a family of four ALL of their protein needs, given the much longer time from hatch to production (eggs or meat) would require a mind boggling number of chickens.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I can't help myself. Try not to be offended, but you could have saved yourself an awful lot of typing by just typing "I don't like your attitude!".

Sorry but the more succinct words and attitude I wanted to use aren't permitted.

 

[Shadrach]

I mean, like, I'm confused too...
If you assume your assumptions are correct you're correct. That seems pretty tautological. Chickens are chickens. Good things are good.

This feels a little like saying "Well if you assume potatoes are peoples main diet and they need an acre for 10lbs, nobody could possibly get value from growing potatoes.". Er... Yes? But... What's the point in making that argument exactly?
So, ok. You're right under your parameters. Those parameters are wrong so you can't make any determinations based off of them. We don't live in that world. But you're right in this hypothetical world.

But then you DO try to make determinations based off of those. Your argument seems to be "Nobody raising chickens can ever make any sort of an undefined difference in anything and you're all delusional and my parameters prove it", and well... That that is just patently false. Cause it firstly ignores a lot of variables, your quantitative values are based on some really unrealistic parameters and you completely ignore all qualitative factors entirely. Which seems like a terrible way to determine a blanket discouraging and antagonistic statement like "people are delusional and will never make a difference".

And THEN you're not interested in hearing why those parameters are off, you're making weird arguments like "hatching out lots of chicks means you're a hatchery not ACTUALLY keeping chickens", you're ignoring qualitative value and ignoring things like food quality, education, individual value, building small efforts, changing mindsets, making lives better, and countless other benefits... So what's the goal here? Cause I'm also kind of getting the feeling of "I made this thread to be judgey"... So if that's not your goal you're not meeting what your goal IS and I have NO idea what the goal was.

I think nobody would have a problem with your arguments if you weren't using really unrealistic expectations to heck on a whole swath of the chicken keeping population. As a thought experiment it's fine. As a method for judging a whole community it's garbage. And it REALLY seems like you're just doing the latter...

There are lots of factors about keeping chickens that I haven't mentioned. I wasn't trying to cover them.
All I am trying to demonstrate is the difficulty of supplying the average meat eater their protein solely from chickens.
Yes there is a broad range in chicken eaters, so to give a picture (Model) I have set some parameters. You have to do this with any model. It is not possible to cover all the variations.
From such a base model one can make judgments about how economical ones chicken keeping is relative to provided nutrition. I think for many chicken keeping runs at a financial loss. The production of meat in general runs at a massive deficit of in this case, protein in, to usable carcass protein out.
I stand by the statement that by keeping back yard chickens one is not going to make a dent in the commercial chicken production so if that is your goal then I have produced some numbers to support my point.
Argue with the numbers

 

[Shadrach]

Sorry but the more succinct words and attitude I wanted to use aren't permitted.

I know. It's bit of a shame sometimes.

 

[Shadrach]

If it is pressure canned, months if not years. But that is not you. It would have to be pressure canned, water bath canning would not do.

On the counter I would not trust it for more than few hours. In the fridge, maybe a week.

I thought not. We jar the honey here and after a year or so it starts to crystallize.
I'll stick to the stew then.

 

[Shadrach]

I raise both chickens and quail and determined that for me, living alone with my dogs and flocks, that a handful of chickens for the sheer enjoyment of having them with the bonus of some of their eggs to eat and 16 adult quail (for breeding) and their offspring (for meat) provides me with close to 30 pounds of meat per month, and 15 dozen quail eggs to eat. I love that I can go from hatch to the table in six to eight weeks with quail. The rest of the eggs are incubated to replenish the meat birds and a couple of times annually to replace my breeding stock. For me, this is totally sustainable. Costs me one 40kg bag of game bird feed per month ($23), and supplements both my diet, and that of my dogs who adore quail eggs served hard boiled, shell and all.
I do still have a carbon footprint, in that I enjoy beef and pork as well, and I do not raise them. If I had to live on nothing but what my flock provides, I could easily increase the number of breeders. I currently only use one of my three incubators, and have the other two as backup, so increasing the production wouldn't be an issue UNLESS the grid went down for more than a day. I have my incubator hooked up to my UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), and it's rated to power my computer, monitor, speakers, and modem for several hours, with the computer disconnected, it can keep the incubator going for over a day.
I really enjoyed your post, and the question presented, and agree that raising CHICKENS to feed a family of four ALL of their protein needs, given the much longer time from hatch to production (eggs or meat) would require a mind boggling number of chickens.

Thank you.

 

[Shadrach]

Honestly playing devil's advocate for a bit I don't think a large percentage of keepers are trying to make a dent in the industrial meat/egg market.
Myself nor my family ever did, the main reason for our own birds was simply due to market products being disgusting and flavorless.
When you see the condtions provided and understand the very basic needs of the birds you're quite certain that wont be improving so you have your own and do your best for them.
Paying for inedible food and having it suffer to boot was and never will be a card on the table

From the introduction posts and early posts I think some do. I've read quite a few "I'm off to do homesteading type posts where making an impact on the chicken industry was one of the goals.
Even with ball park numbers the task is immeasurable. All those fast food joint aren't going to disappear overnight. Vast amounts of money in the industry. It's a bit like taking on the oil companies by producing your own bio fuel. You get the satisfaction of knowing you aren't giving them money directly but that's about it.

 

[igorsMistress]

You get the satisfaction of knowing you aren't giving them money directly but that's about it.

Sometimes that's enough, the satisfaction of not being part of the status quo.

 

[Shadrach]

Sometimes that's enough, the satisfaction of not being part of the status quo.

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.