Pellet vs Free Range/Foraging

[Aunt Angus]

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.

Well, the coop came with the house, but I could estimate what it cost the guy who built it and how long it would take me to build something similar, having built one very similar previously. Not sure how I'd factor land or energy costs, though. I already factor in cleaning and health supplies for tax purposes.

I still think there was a profit for the first 4 years because I didn't have any health issues during that span. Obviously, it would take a couple years to profit after initial costs, if I estimate how much it would have cost to build a comparable coop. But it's been pretty good for the past 2 years, considering I'm not in it for profit.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Well, the coop came with the house, but I could estimate what it cost the guy who built it and how long it would take me to build something similar, having built one very similar previously. Not sure how I'd factor land or energy costs, though. I already factor in cleaning and health supplies for tax purposes.

I still think there was a profit for the first 4 years because I didn't have any health issues during that span. Obviously, it would take a couple years to profit after initial costs, if I estimate how much it would have cost to build a comparable coop. But it's been pretty good for the past 2 years, considering I'm not in it for profit.

There are maps, county by county with pasture rental rates per acre. Answer - not much.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Source: https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/re...3365CF2B#9A9F55D7-E267-38C6-ACB9-DF106291B5A7

 

[Aunt Angus]

There are maps, county by county with pasture rental rates per acre. Answer - not much.

Very cool! I'll see what I can figure out. I'm on vacation atm, so it'll have to wait until I get home.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Very cool! I'll see what I can figure out. I'm on vacation atm, so it'll have to wait until I get home.

I pulled the most recent data for you, and linked it in my last comment, above. New rates should come out end of August.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I pulled the most recent data for you, and linked it in my last comment, above. New rates should come out end of August.

I'll see what I can do. I'm not the best at this stuff, but I'll give it the ol' college try.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I pulled the most recent data for you, and linked it in my last comment, above. New rates should come out end of August.

About $6.85 for the amount of my land the chickens occupy, if I'm reading that correctly.

Now, if I factor it based on my property value, it's more like $12,088 (if my chickens bought the land from me - lol). At that price, I'd happily sell it to them. They make great neighbors. A lil noisy, but at least they are quiet at night when it counts.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

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".

I’d say modern coop-bound chickens are broken if the day comes where commercial feed is no longer available. If they can’t survive by opening up the coop doors and letting them free range, then yes they’re broken in that scenario. In that regard, many modern pet breeds are in that same boat. My free range farm and hunting dogs can survive in ways a peekapoo simply can’t.

So long as the global supply chain doesn’t fail, coop chickens will keep on keeping on. If, however, the world goes through a prolonged crisis where a person can no longer buy food for their chickens, those breeds that can’t free range will die out and only the rugged chickens will survive, not counting those that might be pets of the elite who can continue to feed their birds regardless as to world events.

As I’ve pointed out in another thread, it has happened before. The Greeks and Romans developed coop breeds much like our coop birds of the early 1900s. The Greco-Roman world was rich and could afford to buy food from their chickens from the market and also grow food tended by an extensive slave class and subjected populations from other countries. Those chickens went extinct when Europe went into the dark ages. We basically started from scratch when we began selectively breeding chickens again in the late 1700s to make them
improved layers, working with lanky game breeds and similar slender, agile chickens that were surviving around human farms and villages.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

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.

50-100 eggs a year. But let’s not quibble over that. Where I think the problem lay is that the knowledge is not out there to the average small time chicken keeper that low-to-no-maintenance breeds still exist. You tell an everyday coop-chicken-keeper that bankivoid gamefowl can live wild in the woods and they stare at you like a calf looking at a new gate.

 

[saysfaa]

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...

Cost of the land. Not necessarily. If a commercial plant nursery business had one greenhouse on their ten acres for 20 years - that greenhouse paid the costs of the ten acres. If the business expanded to growing shade trees on four of the acres, the shade trees don't have to pay the taxes on the ten acres also.

We bought this property to live on long before deciding to get chickens. The property taxes didn't change because we got chickens. (We did add a shed but it is too small to add to the tax assessment.)

Wages. Ok, the rate for my normal work is zero dollars per hour. (Real wages are the intangible benefits of caring for home and family.)

On the other hand, one of the reasons we have chickens is I now go out and move in ways I used to pay a gym $75 a month to do. Plus gas and milage to get to the gym, plus bought clothes to wear there... all these should be added to the income side of chicken-keeping.

If every applicable cost is counted.