How much do you spend per month on feed for your small flock???

[Lesa]

Cost of raising chickens- expensive. Cost of having delicious eggs, and the peace of mind of knowing where they come from- priceless.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I spend $20 a month for my 12 caged chickens.

My free ranged birds that can range from 20 to 50 threw out the year cost less than $5 a month.

 

[8ROYALS]

I spend $60 a month on feed and $40 a month on BOSS 88 Chickens that free-range

 

[grandwake]

This is a really, really rough estimate and with added costs of other things involved it would be more expensive (also 350 eggs per year per hen is unlikely), but purely from a feed standpoint...

I have not yet been able to test this estimate with my own chickens but I am figuring with a flock of 4, I will need one bag of feed every two months. Six bags at $13.50 year would be approximately $220 for approximately 1,400 eggs assuming our 4 hens usually lay one egg per day, the equivalent cost for one dozen of our eggs would be around $1.89. Compared to around $5.50 a dozen for free range organic eggs, the price is not only saving money, but the nutritional value as explained before, far exceeds a commercial egg and you are ensuring the humane treatment of your hens. Additionally it would be better for the environment to get an egg from your backyard rather than getting it shipped many miles by diesel truck to your supermarket that presumably you must drive your car to get to.

 

[Pavla]

Hmm, I have, err,,,, had, (racoon attack) 6 Bantams, I now have 3. I bought them last February. I live IN the city of Pittsburgh. We built the coop 3"x3" off ground and they have a 3"x 8" run. They started laying in September, averaged 2+ eggs a day.

So far one bag of Chick Starter ~$8, one bag Grower~$12, one bag Cracked Corn~$5, one bag BOSS ~$5, Grit ~$5, all the scraps from the house and free range a couple hours per day in our 32"x 24" wooden privacy fenced yard.

Feed Costs for a year-ish ( I still have plenty) $35. My husband loves the chickens because they make me happy and they are a very inexpensive pet Oh yeah and fresh eggs!!

 

[TomG]

My cost per dozen has been about $2 if you count food and treats only. If you include the cost of the coop and run, I should break even at the start of the next century.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

I have 15 hens, 13 of which are prime laying age and physically able to lay. (One lady, best we can tell, has never laid a single egg in her year and a half of life, and the other one is old enough that she doesn't lay much anymore).


I also have two very well behaved roosters.


That makes a total of 17 beaks to feed.


My feathered kids go through a 50 pound sack of laying pellets every eight to ten days. How long the sack of feed lasts is determined by: 1, how much they spill, 2, the time of the year (they eat more in the winter), and 3, how much special treats they get in a day.


My chickens get some kind of special treat just about every afternoon. In the summer, that is usually either the grass clippings after I cut the grass, or it is fruits out of the garden, or it is weeds that I pulled out of the garden beds.


In winter, the treat may be sunflower seeds, or bowls of raw milk that I get from a local farmer, or alfalfa that that local dairy farmer's cows drop around the feeder. (The cows don't do a very good job of cleaning the ground, so my wife and I have gone out there and cleaned up the alfalfa debris off the ground and bagged it for our chickens).


Of course, all year long they get kitchen vegetable scraps when they are available.


After feeding all of this to our 15 laying hens and 2 roosters, we tend to get an average of about 10 eggs per day in the summer, and right now, we're getting an average of about 6 or 7 eggs here in the winter. We have gotten as many as 12 eggs a day in the summer, and as low as 5 eggs one day this week. But I'd say the average is about 10 eggs in the summer and 6 to 7 in the winter.


Chicken feed prices are going through the roof right now. I used to be able to buy 50 pound sacks of chicken feed for about $9.95. That was just under a month ago. The last two sacks I bought (yesterday) were $10.95 each. I have been buying extra sacks of chicken feed and storing them in my garden shed because the price is going up so quickly.


I don't think that one can justify city chickens on the basis of egg costs. In addition to the cost of feed, there is the cost of light (14 hours a day) needed to keep up production in the winter. Without supplemental lighting in the winter, chickens will cease to lay eggs all together until spring days get long enough to provide that 14 hours a day of light.


In addition, I just bought my birds a heated waterer since their water kept freezing up, and yes -- despite the fact that many folks on this board swear that you do not have to provide heat, I do provide a small amount of heat on exceptionally cold Memphis nights. That costs money too.


But whereas I can't justify my flock on the basis of reduced breakfast costs, I can justify it in the late afternoon when my wife and I sit outside and watch the birds at play. I can justify it when the rooster comes over and demands I let him eat sunflower seeds out of my hand. I can justify it when those goofy birds go squawking at me or give me the "evil eye."


I can justify it when a broody hen hatches chicks before my very eyes, and is a mighty fine mother to them, I might add.


And yes, I can justify it when I get one of those lovely blue eggs that one of my Ameraucana hens lays, or the green egg that one of my home birthed hens lays. You can't buy a blue egg, or a green egg, at any store in the Memphis area at any price.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

BTW, the History Channel (a subscriber cable TV channel) has a show called Modern Marvels, that has an episode on commercial chicken and egg production.


On that show, they said that the average adult chicken eats about 5 ounces of food a day, and drinks about 10 ounces of water.


They didn't break that down further into the average amount that hens eat and drink, vs. what roosters eat and drink. I would figure that the average hen might eat and drink just a little bit less than this, and the average rooster eat and drink just a little bit more than this. But that is a guess on my part.


All the show said was that the average adult chicken eats 5 oz of food and drinks 10 oz of water every day.

 

[alaskachick]

I have 14 chickens.... I buy one 50lb bag of feed per week. Each bag is $14.00. My chickens do not finished an entire 50 lb bag a week, so I always have a few lbs of overlap. I get a ten to a dozen eggs each day, approx 70 eggs a week. I use about 20 eggs per week, so that means I have to give away or sale 50 eggs a week. My chickens are earning their own keep at this point. I use the money for the feed and for the pine chip bedding. I also can buy them treats, BOSS and cracked corn every so many months as needed.

 

[ndemerly]

I have 8 birds in my laying flock, I believe it costs less than $7.50 or one bag of feed for one month. However, I also have breeders, 4 of two different breeds and feed them a higher protein content, totaling around $13.00. So all in all, probably a few cents over $20.