People with more than 10 chickens

[Kirkwooder]

We have a couple acres out in the middle of nowhere New York. We have access to the neighbors 40+ acres. My layer flock has ranged from 3 to over 100. Right now our flock has 30 +/- hens and 3 roosters.

100 is too many, it becomes a job that you never seem to be able to take a vacation from. 3 isn't enough, all the work of a real flock with none of the benefits. 12-24 seems like a really good range for me. We have a market for almost all the eggs we get and it pays for their feed. It really doesn't seem like any more work than having just a few.

We also raise and sell meat birds, turkeys, and have 100 */- quail for dog training and live sale this spring. It's a lot. We don't seem to make any money, but we always have eggs, chicken, turkey, and whatever else to eat, and we haven't bought any at the grocery in years.

Good neighbors are a must. Ours look after our funny farm when ever we are away and we pay them with poultry and eggs.

 

[My2butterflies]

I could definitely do with less chickens. Less food, less water, less eggs I have so many extra eggs! 19 hens all laying. I get minimum a dozen to 18 a day. I feed eggs to my dogs, my cats, and back to the chickens. We hardly make a dent

If you love where you live then I’d say stay put. A small flock is good. More of the joy and less of the work/cost. Unless.... a perfect home with land that’s in your budget popes up on the market. Jump on it! Haha.

 

[CraftyHen]

Can't imagine having lots of chickens , like 50 or 100 or more. That seems like a lot of work and no real relationship with them. I've ranged from 5 to 20 and find that I prefer a smaller flock, about 10 is the sweet spot for me. At 20 or less, I don't find the amount of work changes all that much. But the higher the number, the more the flock becomes "the chickens" as opposed to "guess what Saltine did today?!" I enjoy getting to know them.

 

[aart]

I could have as many as I wanted, but my coop size and climate restrict me to about 15 during the winter. Went up to 23 my second winter, that was a mistake.
ChickenCabinFever is real and it's ugly!

I hatch new layers every year, but also slaughter cockerels and older hens each year.

 

[VonSFarms]

We started off with 12 chickens, which has now grown to 42 over 3 years. We live in a very cool suburban neighborhood that tolerates our roosters and we gladly supply our neighbors with eggs because at that number we have far too many! For us 20+/- was a more manageable number for food costs and to keep track of. We love the personalities of each and every one of them and we have ages raining from 3yrs to 2 months old and they all groove along quite nicely. In the future we would like to keep it around 20 because living in the panhandle of FL if we experience a life threatening hurricane I can't even get my head space around evacuating with that many chickens!!!

 

[PirateGirl]

This is my approach. I'm currently at 10 birds, ranging from just under 1 yr to just under 5 yrs old. Hubby just asked when can we get more chicks and I reminded him we just got 4 last year, so NO MORE until at least next year or the year after that, depending on production and any losses.

We just had the same conversation picked up 3 pullets in August and haven’t had any losses over winter, so we have 1-6 year olds with 10 layers plus one drake. I think I have to wait at least a year before I add any more.

 

[MissE]

The only time I notice the number of birds increasing the work load is when I have layers and meat birds, and that's because I don't house them together. Otherwise, 10 or 20, doesn't really matter. I am going to build another coop this year, and increase the size of the run, which will be shared by both coops, so there may be more work checking both places for eggs and cleaning.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I started with 6 chickens about 7 years ago. The flock grew to about 20, then after a brief detour with some ducks and geese, now sits at around 70 laying hens (zero roosters). I have 16 more chicks coming in June.

Honestly, 70 chickens isn't much more work to care for than 20...they eat more, but other than that, it's collecting eggs, keeping food and water full, cleaning coops...

 

[JaeG]

We currently have 28 chickens and I think 17 6 week olds, and one of our hens has 3 chicks which are not quite 2 weeks old (plus another snuck off and hid a nest full so goodness knows what she'll hatch). They are mostly bantams and light breeds with just a few heavier birds. I couldn't imagine having that many if they were all large breeds, especially from a feed point of view.

Each one is a pet and most are super friendly. I hatched some eggs from our flock as our bantam Wyandottes, at almost 7 years old, still lay almost every day in summer, so I didn't want to lose those good genes if something were to happen to them over winter (I'm in the southern hemisphere). Any extra chicks that we don't want for ourselves we'll find homes for.

Ours have big coops and free range all day (other than some hormonal cockerels who are confined to a run for the kids safety). That definitely cuts down on the maintenance required to keep them. They have 11.6 acres to roam on, but quite honestly they don't wander far from their coops and are smart enough to stay under the trees (we have the odd hawk cruise past). I just wish they'd spread the cow pats like I've read they are supposed to. Even ones close to their coops get ignored.

The amount of eggs they produce keeps myself and my two sisters in eggs over summer as we all love to bake, plus the dog loves an egg or two as a treat. Quite a few of our girls are older now so didn't produce much this summer, which was another reason for hatching some from our own flock. I have some 6 month old English Araucana pullets who should lay all winter for me.

I'd say it depends on if you want to do more with a few acres than just keep chickens. It's worth it to grow your own food. That's what we have done, though we haven't had our block long. Our orchard is still in the planning stages, but we have cattle and sheep.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I just wish they'd spread the cow pats like I've read they are supposed to. Even ones close to their coops get ignored

I’ve read tossing a little grain on the cow patties can motivate the flock to explore them.

I believe there’s even a grain some folks feed the cows that they can’t digest and just passes through to their manure to attract the chickens to the patties. I can’t recall which grain (I bet Google knows).