What we need to hear from is some people who raised chickens back during the depression and beyond to tell us what they fed their chickens so they were healthy and laid eggs also. Like someone said how much will feed cost us when gas goes to 5.00 a gallon. I don't want to have to give up my chickens or ducks.
In Northern California where I live it is between $20 and $25 for 50# organic lay pellets or scratch, depending on where you buy it. Regular gas $3.49/gal in my remote area.
I think during the depression, folks in rural areas had more pasture/land and grew grain (or bought it locally for pennies) for their critters and/or the critters got every kitchen scrap there was and foraged for a part of their food. People like us weren't paying a premium for "organic," because most things were grown that way, and there wasn't a special designation for it.
I just visited a website that had prices for things in the 30s. A dozen eggs sold for 18 cents. Spring chicken went for 20 cents a pound. In today's prices that is equivalent to $2.75 a doz and $3.09/lb respectively. (I used 1935 as the year and adjusted for inflation.) That sounds about right for the current price of eggs (non-organic) at the store. Organic eggs would sell for $4-$5 here. I have NO idea what chicken sells for, perhaps someone can chime in with that information.
$12 for 50lbs purina layer pellets. I could get some layer crumbles for $8 but it's a much lower quality feed and the guineas were having lots of waste from it.
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they grew their own food, free ranged, traded eggs for grains that they couldn't grow, and ate all the extra chickens for the winter when there was less pasture - depending on good broody heritage hens to hatch more chicks in the spring.