Pellet vs Free Range/Foraging

[Alagirl]

I think it depends on which eggs a person would buy.

When I buy eggs in the store, I buy the cheapest ones. Chickens are only a money-saver for me if they produce eggs cheaper than the cheapest ones in the store.

I have a friend that buys organic free-range eggs when they don't have chickens of their own. As long as they can produce home-raised eggs cheaper than the organic free-range ones, they do save money by having their own chickens.

(Of course saving money is not the only reason to have chickens.)

I see it this way: If I wanted the store-bought eggs I would not have gotten chickens. I see though where you are coming from: a commercially produced egg is commercially produced, no matter the price tag.

The longer answer takes this off on a tangent though. There are many other reasons to have chickens (and other 'homesteading' endeavors) going.
And now you have me wanting to look at acreage again.....

On a small scale, the calculation does not even begin to level out for many years: I am sure we do not eat enough eggs to justify the $1000 I spent so far on the chickens - roughly.
The entertainment I get from their antics is not measurable in $$ though, nor is the forced structure to my day. I do expect a return on their output though, and not just the eggs. and a better use of my scraps I don't want or can't toss in the compost.

 

[Shadrach]

I think you are looking at the wrong supermarket eggs to compare to.

That's possible. Which eggs would you prefer me to compare to?

 

[Aunt Angus]

Modern chickens provide millions and millions of people with abundant, inexpensive protein.

Low-input, low-production breeds capable of living off forage and waste exist and people who only want about 50 eggs per hen per year have the option of raising them in a low-input system. There are people in this thread who have the land, the climate, and the willingness to do so.

But it's not a realistic idea for the average backyarder. We feed our birds and they feed us.

I have the means to do so. I raise the higher production ones because I want to give them the best life possible and not dispose of them once they can no longer produce. Auntie's crazy and a tad hypocritical. I'm a work in progress.

ETA: And it seems to me that if chickens as most of us know them have been bred and tinkered with to the point they can only survive with human intervention and commercial feed solely to benefit us, then, yeah, that's like the definition of exploitation.

 

[NatJ]

I see it this way: If I wanted the store-bought eggs I would not have gotten chickens.

Some people just want cheap eggs.

Some of them are willing to put in the work to raise chickens, if they will have eggs that are genuinely cheaper than the cheapest store eggs.

For people who just want cheap eggs, I would usually recommend they keep buying eggs from the store, because their time could be used more effectively on some other project that would save more money than chicken-keeping.

Personally, I won't pay extra for "better" eggs, but I will pay extra for the pleasure of having chickens. I just don't have any illusions about whether I'm "saving money" when I do it.

 

[Shadrach]

I have yet to see a backyard confined to coop and run chicken keeping model that makes a profit assuming an honest cost analysis.
This doesn't mean there isn't such a thing but I would love anyone to produce such an analysis.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I have yet to see a backyard confined to coop and run chicken keeping model that makes a profit assuming an honest cost analysis.
This doesn't mean there isn't such a thing but I would love anyone to produce such an analysis.

I made a verrrry small profit until vet bills started piling up.

I can legally sell 15 dozen eggs per month before having to change my tax status. I can sell as many duck eggs as I want. I sell at least 15 dozen chicken eggs (sometimes more - ssshhhhh!) at $7/dozen and about 5 duck eggs at $5/half dozen. My coop was already here. They eat $45 in feed per month. I know there are other costs to factor in (slower months, cartons, gas for deliveries, water for cleaning eggs, sanitization supplies, pdz, etc), but there was still a tad of profit at the end of it.

Not anymore, but there was.

 

[3KillerBs]

I think for most fully confined backyard chicken keepers the hopeful “we feed them and they feed us” is in reality more like, we feed them and get some really expensive eggs for our troubles.

Personally, I won't pay extra for "better" eggs, but I will pay extra for the pleasure of having chickens. I just don't have any illusions about whether I'm "saving money" when I do it.

I'm under no illusion that I'm saving money -- though I am moving toward egg sales that will, hopefully, break even.

Selling hatching eggs for Blue Australorps may, in due time, make a profit.

But, taken overall and not just in the backyard hobby, the benefit of having modern, high-production breeds to humanity as a whole is incacluable.

I have been so poor that if our church hadn't fed us we wouldn't have eaten. I CANNOT take the view that the modern miracle of the safest, most abundant food supply the world has ever known is in any way "broken".

 

[Aunt Angus]

I have yet to see a backyard confined to coop and run chicken keeping model that makes a profit assuming an honest cost analysis.
This doesn't mean there isn't such a thing but I would love anyone to produce such an analysis.

I can try to put together an actual cost analysis. I think I have the records. Maybe. It would take a lot of doing, but I might try, just for hahas. You posed an interesting challenge.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I CANNOT take the view that the modern miracle of the safest, most abundant food supply the world has ever known is in any way "broken".

Totally respect that view. I won't get into it beyond saying it's a deeply personal belief I hold and struggle with, but I feel differently.

And I really do get what you're saying. I was homeless and starving (literally) for a spell, so I get it.

 

[Shadrach]

I can try to put together an actual cost analysis. I think I have the records. Maybe. It would take a lot of doing, but I might try, just for hahas. You posed an interesting challenge.

A few things that people overlook in such analysis:
The cost of the land. Every commercial concern has to factor this in.
The true cost of the coop including time building it. Whatever your rate for your normal work is the rate you should include. Commercial concerns have to factor these in as well.
Often overlooked are the various coop and run cleaning products and chicken health care at vets and at home.
The cost of the original chickens be they from eggs (don't forget to factor in the cost of the incubator and broody coop including any heating.