Is 300 chickens enough?

[Unexpected chicken lover]

Oh my...lol i quit following many pages ago...thank you @lazy gardener

 

[Toothpick]

Everyone in our region sells at $2 per dz. Every tom, dick and harry sells eggs here. We make our $ selling poultry more than eggs. We are at just under 200 birds. Alternative feed is the only way we make money on eggs.
Check out the prices in your area before you set up shop.
300 birds on a 1/4 acre is View attachment 1386864

I’m curious...If I may ask, how much do you sell a chicken for?

I recently sold 6 hens for $4.00 each. I felt that was really cheap, but I honestly have no idea. I also wanted to move them on anyway since they were separate from my main flock (older hens).

 

[pennyJo1960]

out here in Washington state if they are a week or more old 16 minimum

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I’m curious...If I may ask, how much do you sell a chicken for?

I recently sold 6 hens for $4.00 each. I felt that was really cheap, but I honestly have no idea. I also wanted to move them on anyway since they were separate from my main flock (older hens).

Chicks/ 7 days old @ $5. Straight run.
Young off heat @ 7 to 10 (quantity discounts drop it.
6-7 months pullets @ 20-25 (laying) FIRM
6 mo cockerels @ 10+ to 20(breed governs) or discount quantity.
Old soup hens maybe 10-15, depending on population and need to liquidate. (no return/egg less)
Eggs for pennies on the dollar.
Same with our pigs- Market is FLOODED, over flooded with eggs and pigs. People are selling malnourished swine for the price we get for an egg layer.
We use to make good $ on Berkshire pigs. Backyard farmers flooded the market by not cutting their boars and now everybody is breeding pigs. We breed mostly for freezer stock now until the yahoo's fade away.
CUT YOUR MALES!!!!!!!
OR WE WILL ALL GO BROKE RAISING PIGS!

 

[aart]

OP left the building many pages ago.

Even before the thread got 'featured', which poured oil on the slippery slope of sticking to OP's question.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

 

[Toothpick]

Chicks/ 7 days old @ $5. Straight run.
Young off heat @ 7 to 10 (quantity discounts drop it.
6-7 months pullets @ 20-25 (laying) FIRM
6 mo cockerels @ 10+ to 20(breed governs) or discount quantity.
Old soup hens maybe 10-15, depending on population and need to liquidate. (no return/egg less)
Eggs for pennies on the dollar.
Same with our pigs- Market is FLOODED, over flooded with eggs and pigs. People are selling malnourished swine for the price we get for an egg layer.
We use to make good $ on Berkshire pigs. Backyard farmers flooded the market by not cutting their boars and now everybody is breeding pigs. We breed mostly for freezer stock now until the yahoo's fade away.
CUT YOUR MALES!!!!!!!
OR WE WILL ALL GO BROKE RAISING PIGS!

So the dude I sold them to got a great deal! No wonder someone else came by a couple days later wanting to buy some. Had to tell him no.

I live in the country and I figured everyone out here had chickens. I only have 15 hens, 1 rooster now. I had a sign up for a week by the road when I got about 9 dozen. I had to take the sign down because I sold out. That was 2 weeks ago. Sold an 18pk the other day and didn’t even have the sign out.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

g

So the dude I sold them to got a great deal! No wonder someone else came by a couple days later wanting to buy some. Had to tell him no.

I live in the country and I figured everyone out here had chickens. I only have 15 hens, 1 rooster now. I had a sign up for a week by the road when I got about 9 dozen. I had to take the sign down because I sold out. That was 2 weeks ago. Sold an 18pk the other day and didn’t even have the sign out.

Thanks for the info!

geographical markets vary dramatically. Plus we hatch breeds TSC/R-King don't carry.

 

[chattycathy4444]

@KDOGG331

Oh, no I'm not offended or upset at all. I feel unhappy about having to remove her from my flock of course. I think that the moment you stop caring about the animals is the moment you start being able to make choices like "Well maybe they DON'T need fresh air, or enrichment, or dirt...". It's important that people care about their animals.
But the moment you make the choice to keep them as anything but a pet flock, even just to pay for themselves, choices like this crop up... Largely because vet care is just SO expensive. (Even DIY vet care can become challenging.) And years of no/low production with feed costs scales dramatically. If you keep one or two favorites around that's one thing. A whole flock of older, mostly free-loading hen would add up, especially when you only have space for so many.
Unless it's an emergency I think long and hard before removing an animal from my homestead... But ultimately if it seems likely to cost us more to keep the animal around than it would produce over it's lifetime we usually make the choice to remove them. Sometimes the animals are rude and unlikable and they're easy to remove... And sometimes we have favorites that we have a soft spot for that we keep around way too long.
It's the requirements of running a business, but luckily there's that wiggle room.

At the risk of asking this question and offending anyone, I'll apologize first
I've been keeping the non-producing, older hens because I'm so attached. I have a small flock of 9 and currently have 6 chicks that are almost 10 weeks old. I'm very attached to my old girls, but IF I decide to thin out the non producing, is there a gentler way to take care of it? I have three who I could never willingly get rid of because they are so tame and loveable. The others are not as friendly and were given to me as adults. I've had my original 6 for 4 years...I think 3 of them are pretty done laying...those are my tame girls Thoughts?

 

[ShrekDawg]

At the risk of asking this question and offending anyone, I'll apologize first
I've been keeping the non-producing, older hens because I'm so attached. I have a small flock of 9 and currently have 6 chicks that are almost 10 weeks old. I'm very attached to my old girls, but IF I decide to thin out the non producing, is there a gentler way to take care of it? I have three who I could never willingly get rid of because they are so tame and loveable. The others are not as friendly and were given to me as adults. I've had my original 6 for 4 years...I think 3 of them are pretty done laying...those are my tame girls Thoughts?

I mean, if you are attached to them, there is nothing that says that you HAVE to get rid of any of them. You could keep them all if you want, it's easier and less expensive with a small flock that. If you really want to thin them though I suppose you could sell them, although I'm not sure many people would want older, non producing hens but idk. There are also fairly quick, painless ways to cull them if you go that route. If you're like me and you can't do it yourself or can't bear to eat them, you could sell them if you don't mind/don't think about what happens to them. That way you don't have to do it yourself. But don't feel like you have to cull them. I mean, unless you're selling their eggs or something and/or it's really expensive to feed them?

I have 7 hens now (lost one last fall to a hawk) and mine are pets so I don't think I could ever get rid of them. Even if that's not practical. My dad keeps asking what you do with older, non producing hens/questioning why I'd keep them but I love them and got them for pets, not just eggs, so I couldn't.

They are turning 3 years old next month but are surprisingly still producing pretty well.