It'll be 3 adults, plus cooking and serving back any extras. We have 3 acres and the birds will be free range during the day, cooped at night. I'm thinking a bird on the table one or twice a year will be good, the flock will be mostly for eggs but I'd like to have to option of a nice fat bird on the table if the flock gets to big. I'm pretty sure we'll be using an incubator, its just more reliable. Predator aren't such a problem, there are a couple of hawks that live in the area and some mongoose.
Feed conversion rates is where it gets tricky, I'd like to keep it as low as possible but at the same time I know I'm not going to achieve store bought prices. The plan is to get chicks, my landlord was thinking RIR's but he knows squat about birds, and let my hen show them the ropes so they learn to be good foragers. I want chickens for the sake of chickens and would feed them the best I could afford to, right now I'm feeding the babies organic mixed grains with oyster shell available for the hen.
We will also be feeding them garden waste.... and lots of it. My landlord has a green house, he grows a variety of greens and sells them to market vendors. The problem is a LOT of it gets tossed because its not pretty enough... people are weird about their veggies. There's a lot of money being thrown away, I can only eat so much lettuce! The landlord knows I want chickens and he's looking to recoup some of the costs. I don't know if that's feasible to do and still feed the chickens properly.
I've tried to explain to him that its more complicated than throw them in the yard and let them peck... but I just don't think he gets it. In the end, I'll probably just feed them commercial layer feed and be done with it. But the organic grains make the eggs sooo good, anyway I'm rambling now, sorry.
