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

[ChocolateMouse]

Fabulous article, thank you for working out all the maths, way beyond my capabilities. I have chickens just because I like chickens - their eggs are a bonus which I usually give away to others because I just couldn't eat that many. I would absolutely NOT be able to eat any of my girls, although I am not a vegetarian. However, I have found that since becoming a chicken owner I can no longer eat chicken at all. Since other meats are becoming prohibitively expensive, I am becoming a vegetarian by default!

See, this right here is a big part of why this sort of post bothers me when folks post things with wildly exaggerated numbers.

As a heads up, the majority of the OPs numbers are based on small half-wild mountain chickens from Spain. Then applied to an inaccurate assumption about average american chicken consumption.

To feed the average american you need only 1.2 egg layers per person and 22 (assuming a dual purpose 4lb carcass, not a CX) meat chickens per person using average american chickens to meet the average american diet. Even raising out your own meat chickens using broody hens only, you'd probably only need 3 broody hens and one rooster per person. A flock of 6 with three clutches of 7-8 will feed the average american both chicken meat and eggs through the year and account for replacements as you rotate older stock out. (X3 for the average american household.)
(As a heads up, multiply the meat part x3 for ALL meat consumption per year if you want. It still hits only 66 chickens a year plus 9 broody hens, a single rooster and two egg hens to round up. Times four it's only 314 chickens for a household of four, which is still a third again bigger than the national average, 3 people, which would be around 235 chickens. Not 500. And would meet a lot more of your total protein needs than suggested, 350 grams per chicken.)

It's totally understandable to be veggie for financial reasons. Most of us get a good chunk of our protein from veggies whether we like it or not. Certainly if you can swing all the legumes, it can be much cheaper.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Actually it's funny. Now that I've dug into it a bit with reference number and real math I can answer the title question.

The average american chicken (dual purpose, 4lbs raw) produces nearly 350 grams of protein. (2)
The average american eats about 220lbs of meat per year, 90 of which is chicken.
Recommended daily dietary protein intake is 50g per day on average, or 350 a week. That lines up rather neatly so as to mean one chicken per week.
52 weeks a year. (55 if you meet the average TOTAL meat consumption in the USA per year. As noted, people in the USA eat more than they need to and "are" meat eaters.)

Which means one whole chicken a week gives you all the protein you need. Egg proteins aside....
That means exactly 52 chickens a year. At 8 chicks per broody that's 7 hens and a rooster with a bit to spare.
Exactly 60 chickens for one person. Assuming you raised one batch of chicks in the spring, one in the summer and one in the fall, raising each batch to 12 weeks (dual purpose not CX), that's a maintained flock of 28 chickens for 9 months of the year per person.

Or, now that I've done the numbers more closely, 28 breeders and 208 chickens in three batches for a household of four, of which means a flock of 100 (total 236 for a household of four) maintained year round for ALL your protein needs in a house of four. Every ounce from chicken meat. Plus a TON of spare eggs.

If you use CX as most americans do this easily drops to 38 chickens per year. Or 151 for a household of four, or 50 divided into 3 batches, no egg layers no broodies.

For reference, meeting the same daily protein needs from the average large eggs (6g per egg) is 8.5ish eggs per day per person. With a flock of 24 breeders even with 1/3rd brooding for some of that time, you can get average 18 eggs per day most of the year. So if you supply half your protein with the eggs you'll only need to raise 104 meat chickens per year for a house of four. Or otherwise maintain a flock of only 60 dual purpose chickens 3/4 of the year and a flock of 24 for the winter (for four).

Amusingly, a 60 chicken flock would need less than 1/8th of an acre at 66sqft per bird to maintain the whole flock to my current standards. Or, a bit less than size of my back yard. I actually could feed a family of four with just chickens off of my suburban back lawn with 1000 sqft left for vegetable garden beds.

 

[CannedMonster]

As one of those posters of "lesser" intelligence, I offer this:

LMAO!! ...Colin...

 

[BDutch]

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, do not make any sense to a keeper who replaces their birds by incubation or purchase.

I respond to the leghorn assumptions:

The real leghorns are not the same as the hybrids for the industry that have many leghorn genes. At least in Europe. This assumption is therefore probably incorrect. The aknowledged leghorn is a beautiful chicken that is good in free ranging. They do provide many eggs and do not go broody in general.
In Europe there are several type of leghorn breeds aknowledged. The (original?) Italian *(Livorno), the English and the Dutch. The English and Dutch originate from the US type. And the US type probably came from Spain.

Over here the look-la-like hybrid is often sold as Leghorn but is definitely something completely different in grace and behaviour.

*ps: Recently even the Italian have choosen the Dutch type as standard because it was more beautiful.

 

[Shadrach]

I have tried to be reasonably clear about the assumptions I've made. There are other models.

Trying to cover every aspect of a subject in a single post is always difficult. It may have been better to provide more information in the first post. I did acknowledge there are other models and ChocolateMouse has provided one in this post. It's not a bad model but like the model I presented it makes some assumptions.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...our-family-eats.1340151/page-30#post-21962876
His/her model is for rather different keeping circumstances than the model I used.
There are the a lot of factors that would make CM's model unsuitable for the keeping circumstances I modeled for.
The model assumes that the number of eggs set produces the same number of chicks.
Often this isn't the case. Some allowance needs to be made for hatch failures.
There is also predation to take into account. It may not be an issue for CM.
Anyway, a reasonable model given the stated parameters. Just as a figure to bear in mind, CM's model gave 236 chickens over a year to supply all the protein for a family of four.

So is my model garbage in garbage out and unrealistic?
Could I have been more tactful in it's presentation?

I've found it a very helpful baseline that has helped me think more carefully about some of the assumptions I've made. Calculating demand for the chickens has been almost impossible with the data I have. A business can crash very quickly if the demand can't be met. For my model I've tried to set the number of chickens ready to sell that gives some flexibility in line with demand. looking at my notes, I allowed 100 chickens to cater for this each year. This probably isn't enough if the project is a success.
There is also predation to take into account when managing a free range flock. There is already a 6 foot electric fence surrounding 12 acres of the site. The other six acres would need to be secured when the project is fully stocked.
One of the problems with using broody hens is despite all and any encouragement they can be extremely obstinate about when and if they go broody. This has to be allowed for. If for example I cut the prospective broody hen population from my original 100 to 50 and kept to the to 6 eggs per broody, allowing for one third loss from clutch this would give 200 chicks per year assuming the hens went broody and sat once a year.
I am told by people that keep Fayoumies that going broody twice a year is likely. That would give 400 chicks per year. 400 a year is enough to replace the entire stock once a year but won't cater for an increase in product demand.
Because these chickens will be free range (within the property boundaries mostly I hope (a six foot fence isn't much of a challenge for Fayoumies or any of the other breeds being considered) apart from the broody hens I need some proportion of senior hens and roosters to maintain flock stability. I have no idea how many because how the entire flock operates once it settles is completely unknown. Initially we thought that it was probable that a particular ratio of roosters to hens might establish itself should they demonstrate similar tribal arrangements as they have here with the chickens I keep and with the person who keeps Fayoumies who is also involved in the project. This may not happen.
400 chickens seems a lot of chickens. Say three restaurant participate in the scheme. Allowing 100 'residents' to be seniors that gives 300 prospective sale chickens per year.
Split equally between three restaurants that's 100 each. It's quite possible given the six of the Fayoumies that an entire chicken gets used to supply one meal which may be shared between a given number of clients.
I would like half the entire population (senior roosters, proven broody hens and lead hen) to be residents to try to ensure flock stability. That brings the number of chickens available for sale down to 250 from the original 500.
One might be tempted to say that the model is uneconomical but that depends on how much one can sell the chickens for and the aims of the project.
I have a feeling that if anything my model might be an underestimate.

Despite the differences of opinion I hope whichever view people take on which method of chicken keeping is better and all the ethical considerations on both sides, I hope the thread has provoked some thought.

To make any model that tries to represent something complex you have to make some assumptions that are relevant to what the model is trying to represent and refine it as reality demonstrates it's shortfalls.

 

[Shadrach]

I respond to the leghorn assumptions:

The real leghorns are not the same as the hybrids for the industry that have many leghorn genes. At least in Europe. This assumption is therefore probably incorrect. The aknowledged leghorn is a beautiful chicken that is good in free ranging. They do provide many eggs and do not go broody in general.
In Europe there are several type of leghorn breeds aknowledged. The (original?) Italian *(Livorno), the English and the Dutch. The English and Dutch originate from the US type. And the US type probably came from Spain.

Over here the look-la-like hybrid is often sold as Leghorn but is definitely something completely different in grace and behaviour.

*ps: Recently even the Italian have choosen the Dutch type as standard because it was more beautiful.

We do have leghorns here in Spain and I have to agree, they are not much like the battery leghorns in the USA.

 

[Molpet]

Trying to cover every aspect of a subject in a single post is always difficult. It may have been better to provide more information in the first post. I did acknowledge there are other models and ChocolateMouse has provided one in this post. It's not a bad model but like the model I presented it makes some assumptions.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...our-family-eats.1340151/page-30#post-21962876
His/her model is for rather different keeping circumstances than the model I used.
There are the a lot of factors that would make CM's model unsuitable for the keeping circumstances I modeled for.
The model assumes that the number of eggs set produces the same number of chicks.
Often this isn't the case. Some allowance needs to be made for hatch failures.
There is also predation to take into account. It may not be an issue for CM.
Anyway, a reasonable model given the stated parameters. Just as a figure to bear in mind, CM's model gave 236 chickens over a year to supply all the protein for a family of four.

So is my model garbage in garbage out and unrealistic?
Could I have been more tactful in it's presentation?

I've found it a very helpful baseline that has helped me think more carefully about some of the assumptions I've made. Calculating demand for the chickens has been almost impossible with the data I have. A business can crash very quickly if the demand can't be met. For my model I've tried to set the number of chickens ready to sell that gives some flexibility in line with demand. looking at my notes, I allowed 100 chickens to cater for this each year. This probably isn't enough if the project is a success.
There is also predation to take into account when managing a free range flock. There is already a 6 foot electric fence surrounding 12 acres of the site. The other six acres would need to be secured when the project is fully stocked.
One of the problems with using broody hens is despite all and any encouragement they can be extremely obstinate about when and if they go broody. This has to be allowed for. If for example I cut the prospective broody hen population from my original 100 to 50 and kept to the to 6 eggs per broody, allowing for one third loss from clutch this would give 200 chicks per year assuming the hens went broody and sat once a year.
I am told by people that keep Fayoumies that going broody twice a year is likely. That would give 400 chicks per year. 400 a year is enough to replace the entire stock once a year but won't cater for an increase in product demand.
Because these chickens will be free range (within the property boundaries mostly I hope (a six foot fence isn't much of a challenge for Fayoumies or any of the other breeds being considered) apart from the broody hens I need some proportion of senior hens and roosters to maintain flock stability. I have no idea how many because how the entire flock operates once it settles is completely unknown. Initially we thought that it was probable that a particular ratio of roosters to hens might establish itself should they demonstrate similar tribal arrangements as they have here with the chickens I keep and with the person who keeps Fayoumies who is also involved in the project. This may not happen.
400 chickens seems a lot of chickens. Say three restaurant participate in the scheme. Allowing 100 'residents' to be seniors that gives 300 prospective sale chickens per year.
Split equally between three restaurants that's 100 each. It's quite possible given the six of the Fayoumies that an entire chicken gets used to supply one meal which may be shared between a given number of clients.
I would like half the entire population (senior roosters, proven broody hens and lead hen) to be residents to try to ensure flock stability. That brings the number of chickens available for sale down to 250 from the original 500.
One might be tempted to say that the model is uneconomical but that depends on how much one can sell the chickens for and the aims of the project.
I have a feeling that if anything my model might be an underestimate.

Despite the differences of opinion I hope whichever view people take on which method of chicken keeping is better and all the ethical considerations on both sides, I hope the thread has provoked some thought.

To make any model that tries to represent something complex you have to make some assumptions that are relevant to what the model is trying to represent and refine it as reality demonstrates it's shortfalls.

Around here, anything in limited supply is more desirable for some people.

 

[centrarchid]

I had several assumptions with my posts. First, alternative animal protein sources would be hard to come by, at least seasonally. Secondly, access to to complete diets would be non existent. I have first hand experience raising chickens without using complete diets. Several things at play to make that work. First several acres at least required just to keep a few birds and not all acres are equal. Secondly, production will be seasonal where from the months of November through roughly March no consistent egg production. During that interval, the best I could provide is scratch grains. Such a supplement to reduced forage availability during winter means focus is on keeping birds alive, not realizing production. At this time caloric requirements are also at their highest because birds will need to be outside to get what the scratch is short on. Broods would average 6 chicks at harvest and the majority of birds harvested would way less than 2 lbs. Faster growing breeds are going have a hard time producing on forages without a lot of supplementation with feed.

 

[Kazzandra]

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

I have a feeling that if anything my model might be an underestimate.

https://www.nationalchickencouncil....d-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/

The question comes down to how much edible meat you get per bird, then. Broilers you might get far more, but even a '6 lb roasted chicken' is still weighed down in bones and other non edibles (even if you make broth or soup from the bones... still isn't the same).

So everyone laughing at this guy's rather modest estimate of 50 chickens per person per year, please take in mind that the current numbers are approaching 100 pounds of consumed chicken (not whole body weight of chickens, mind). And that's with copious amounts of supplemented flesh from many other species-- more than half of one's consumption NOT being chicken (about 60 percent, in fact).

You can say whatever you wish about what it takes to be a 'big' meat eater, or not, or what you supplement with, but these are the current numbers for pound per capita per species.

If EVERYTHING was chicken, it'd be 221 pounds of *consumed* (not carcass) weight.

That people immediately started in on his number being too high says a lot about how easy is it to actually use chickens as a meat source outside of the factory farm situations society is mostly locked in.

(edited to add, I do see other people brought up these numbers and came to his same math later. It was bawking to read 30 pages, with many people reacting with assumptions without even using numbers).

 

[ChocolateMouse]

"The model assumes that the number of eggs set produces the same number of chicks."

No it doesn't. I said 8 CHICKS per broody, not 8 eggs.

Average dual purpose hens can sit on 12 eggs, some of the bigger 14 or 16. It assumes a 1/2-2/3 hatch rate - pretty reasonable. Also it assumes they go broody only once a year. This is also pretty inaccurate as I've had a lot of heritage DP chickens go broody up to 4 times a year.

Tolerances are built in.

Also;
"If EVERYTHING was chicken, it'd be 221 pounds of *consumed* (not carcass) weight."

Also not true. It says the average US citizen will have ACCESS to 221lbs a year.
Given the amount of food waste in the average household and what gets thrown out at grocery stores, ACTUAL consumption is going to be notably lower. If you account for 15% food waste it's more like 187lbs a year. The average chicken is 75% meat and presumably a good chunk of that 'consumed' chicken is bone-in. So again, tolerances are built in.

Tbh, I wouldn't wanna compete with groceries under Shad's model either. It assumes low quality feed, low weight chickens, high predation rates, infrequent broodiness, and a LOT of freeloaders. It wouldn't be economical or competitive when presented against a commercial western market and you'd be hard pressed to make an argument for things like better carcass quality, etc. To me, it sounds like a bad way to raise chickens for anything but fun.
However the original stipulation was "You can't possibly feed your average american family using these numbers" and "People who think they're feeding their families are delusional and self-righteous". And that's true using THOSE numbers.
But also not reflective of the average american chicken or the average american chicken keeper. Not many of us are ranging game chickens over the mountains and then claiming we're feeding our families. If you're not doing that it's very possible. And pretty much none are eating all their protein as chicken meat. Adjusting those numbers for reality makes it clear that it's not very delusional at all to assume the average american chicken keeper is perfectly capable of making a substantial dent in their food purchases by keeping chickens for food.