why I come out ahead

[rhoda_bruce]

I can't say much about my coop, because it was really one of the absolute nicest things my husband ever did for me. It did cost more than any other coop I have ever seen. Even my doctor's coop, looks like a shack near a mansion compared to mine. He used the best grade of lumber and had a water level in hand during the entire construction. But it will surely be here even when I'm not and by doing some selling of chicks, rather than just eggs, the profits will tend to that. But I know what you mean, because my first few coops really didn't cost anything, but work and served me well enough.
Really anyone can do chickens if they have a mind to. I had a neighbor that always had chickens, but she used junk to keep them contained and I do mean junk. Whatever sticks and posts she could find and whatever scrap wood or tin became a roof. Her front fence for them was a trawl and then there was an AC box which I think may have been a nest. And she somehow did all this without the majority of the neighborhood knowing she even had them. It might have been the breed, but they didn't make any noise....ever. They were for her own personal use.
As far as coops go, I am aware that mine costed a lot more than necessary, but I'll get it back. And even if I don't, the damage is done and I have a nice building in my yard to use for whatever I want. Its like, is the cup half full or hald empty?. The chickens are the reason for the coop, but they didn't cost me the coop. That was my husband who wanted me to have something nice. But if I want to say that it was a necessary expense, then my first egg didn't cost 500, it cost more like 2,500. I would pay it again though.

 

[wolftracks]

Rhoda what do you make on chicks? Do you sell POL pullets or sell them younger? What sells the best for you?

 

[austin.ray22]

I appreciate that someone else on this site chooses to consider their flock a business and chooses to manage it that way. Props to rhoda for being more concerned with a feed-to-egg ratio than chicken diapers or with how many June Bugs "her girlies" ate today. That is definitely a motivating business attitude and I respect it!

 

[txliss]

Way awesome thread! I only have 4 laying hens in a hidden coop on an acre lot.

They cannot freerange because my 2 German Shepherds had too much practice hunting wild turkey before chickens came along,

and because I'm breaking deed restrictions (not city rules) to have them here.

I buy 1 $14 bag of layena pellets per 6 weeks in summer, per 4 weeks in winter.

#1 I give all my kitchen scraps to the chickens - including egg shells - I just crunch them up first
#2 During summer, they get a bagger full of fresh mown grass every Saturday (I do deep litter method, and have an open front coop)
#3 I buy only 2 bales of straw/year - winter and summer. I rake my acre of leaves (we have dense woods) into a huge pile in the fall, and use that for their run and bedding. I add a wheelbarrow of leaves to the run about every 2 weeks, and it usually lasts all fall and spring. I only add the straw in the winter for insulation purposes, and in the summer when the leaves are used up.
#4 As plants die off, or are replaced in the garden, I cut up the safe ones, and give those to the chickens, too.
#5 My dd gives the birds a handfull of BOSS and oyster shell periodically in summer (scratch for winter only)

If I had enough to sell, I think I would come out ahead with these practices - or at least break even. As it is, the ladies almost pay for themselves. I get 1-3 eggs/day in winter, 4/day in summer, and about 3/day in spring&fall. Not too shabby for 2 RSL, 1 BSL, & 1 BO.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Thanx you guys.
txliss: I know what you mean about breaking even, but if we talking about the store bought eggs compared to what you have, I'd go with the latter.
austinray22: It is a business, if you think about it long enough. They are well appreciated livestock and I care for them the best I can, but they are contributing small amount of funds to my family as well as meat and eggs, which I don't have to purchase. When I do a big hatch and sell mainly the pullets, I get enough money to fatten up the roos to have free meat for a while.
wolftracks: My dad suggested my prices for the Easter hatch and thats what I went with. It was 3.00 each or 2 for 5.00 and most people chose the 2 or more. They sold pretty fast. Next year I will start advertising earlier and at more places. By the time they were 3 weeks old, I separated them pullets in one pen and roos in the other and I downed the price of the roos, but brought the pullets up to 4.00 and then 2 weeks later, I went up to 5.00. I did 2 hatches of chicks this year.
I have started pullets and laying hens that I would sell for about 15 each, but I'm not selling all. I need eggs. Its just that I'm thinking on changing my breed to white rocks.....haven't completely decided. Also am thinking on getting some standard cornish, because need more meat. Also, I tried to keep things kinda quiet at first about getting into chickens again, but somehow the word got out and some of my old customers showed up wanting meat birds. I get about 5.00 for a roo at slaughter age.....live. If I would clean it, it would cost a lot more.
I do well with that, because there are a lot of people coming here, afraid to buy meat from the store, for whatever reason. Eggs too. I have a new customer that wiped me out of eggs and eyeballed the roos, claiming he has food allergies and wants to avoid preservatives. A lady wants me to please sell her goat milk when my female kids, because she says its the only kind of milk one of her children can drink and it costs her a fortune buying it in cans. Certain cultures seem to demand a fresh kill too.

 

[briteday]

I also see my chickens as an investment of livestock, and less as pets. We do love them and take good care of them...but when productivity drops they can be someone else's yard art.

Our coop is a refurbished wooden shed that the neighbors used for goats. We got it for free, a good coat of paint inside and out, some 2 x 4's built into roosts, spent a few bucks on nifty garage organization bins at Lowes for nesting boxes...that was about our only expense.

Their run is chain link, and we did spend about $200 on that. We watched Craigslist and there were quite a few home foreclosures in our area and I think we did pretty good for 4 sets of dog kennels in this area. We have about 50' x 30' penned off for them when they can't free range in the rest of the pasture.

As we mentioned to people that we were into chickens, they came out of the woodwork with feeders and waterers that were taking up space in their garages! Another neighbor even contributed a 10' piece of leftover plastic gutter that has become our favorite feeder to date. We started out with hand-me-down waterers. And as we could afford it from egg sales we rigged up a 5 gallon bucket with some nipple waterers and a toilet float connected to our garden hose for the auto waterer. We drop an aquarium heater into the bucket for the winter and it works fine.

Our original 6 RIR hens came to us for free when the neighbor got tired of feeding "freeloaders" that he raised up from chicks to 4 months of age. He just didn't wait long enough (and maybe his dogs were part of the problem) but we got our first pullet eggs the day after we brought the chickens to our place.

Last year we purchased some heritage breeds from Privett. They did not lay well over the winter. In fact they pretty much stopped laying from Nov - Feb.

This year we were going to put in an order for sexlinks but the minimum was 25 chicks...I don't need 25 hens. So we posted on craigslist and soon we were ordering 100 chicks. The sales of the chicks covered the cost of our chicks/shipping and then some. We also have a friend with an incubator. Since we still had some of the heritage breeds (delawares, RIR, BR) and an RIR roo we hatched out about 100 chicks this Spring. Before we started setting the eggs we posted again on craigslist and had a waiting list of buyers for those chicks. We purposely set the eggs on a Thursday so they would hatch Thur/Fri and we were home on the weekends so that people could come to pick up their chicks. Our only cost was the electricity for the incubator and a day or two of food for the chicks. A lot of them were sexlinked so we could tell the roos from the pullets when they hatched, and able to sell the sexed pullets for a bit more than we sold the straight runs. The known roos were sold for $1 each to snake owners and we saved the cost of raising them out or having to sell them as cheaper straight run. The snake people also picked up their chicks every weekend. Some people in our area have small coops, few birds, and no way to raise replacements so we also offered POL for the cost of a chick + $1/week that we kept them. Most went for around $15. And just this weekend, as my pullets have begun laying, I sold last year's hens to people who were happy to have hens already laying and don't care about the number of eggs they will get. Inour area I had no trouble selling my hens for $7-10, depending on their laying productivity.

And what do we do with the eggs? We sell them, and always have a waiting list. Most of them go to co-workers and neighbors who are thrilled that we "deliver" the eggs...shoot, we either see them at work or pass by their houses going to and from! During the summer when people go on vacation we have a neighborhood cafe that is happy to purchase our eggs for the going rate. Since we have more hens this year than before we are going to try putting a cooler on the front porch with a sign on the mailbox, if we have extras to sell. The sales of eggs ($2-3/dozen) has always covered the cost of feed (Layena runs about $13/ 50# here) and whatever else they need. I watch craigslist right after Halloween for free bales of straw that people have used for decorations...and generally get my winter bedding free that way. Each Spring we buy one bale of shavings for brooding chicks. And I always have enough left over for cleaning out the nests as the new pullets start laying each year. We get some free produce scraps from the local organic grocery chain store. And sometimes I buy a sack of alfalfa cubes in the winter for greens. I would like to buy whole grain to feed but have yet to locate a source in my area that I consider reliable.

So I do believe that chickens can be a self-sustaining hobby. In our case, with 11 hens, a couple of banties (we keep them for our daughter's 4H work and at least we get to eat those eggs!), and a rooster...we broke even last year. We hope to make a profit this year.

 

[wolftracks]

I love this thread!

I need as much info as I can get on this, so keep it coming!


please

 

[vegaschick]

Awesome! Just what I wanted to read...ways that this hobby can be self-sustaining too. Thanks for all the great ideas.

Our hen house/coop was made of wood my dad was given (frame) and clad with our old wooden fence that was replaced by a neighbor for a block one. We used some old shelves to make the nest boxes, made our own waters and feeders, and our first 2 hens were free. We only purchased the chicken wire and fasteners as we needed to enclose the top (too many doves here and some hawks). They get all the table scraps that are okay for them and we compost the rest along with their waste. They get free run of the garden between growing seasons, of which we have two. They get the leaves in fall and cut grass in summer. We made an incubator out of mostly recycled items and I hatched out some eggs that I paid only shipping on + some eggs given me by some friends with flocks and roosters. I processed my first three birds this month...and am looking forward to selling eggs in the future. It's only been a year and I'm still learning but I'm happy with how it's going.

Keep the ideas coming!

 

[IonaFarm]

WOW! What great ideas. No I haven't broken even yet.

My coop is in an unused stall in our 60 yr old barn. It already had a window. Husband just had to cut a hole for the pop door.

Bought used metal nests. I didn't realize at the time that each chicken didn't need it's own nest! So I have 24 extra nests right now. Need to sell.

Did buy patio blocks for the floor. It makes it so much easier to clean out the coop. And a solid surface for me to walk on with a bad knee.

Bought two large used rabbit cages. Already had a large dog crate. Use those to separate chicks as needed.

The outside run was mainly built with extra wood we already had, although some was bought. He built the door.

As for feed 50# bags for right now. Need to look into purchasing in larger quantity. Need more info on what to buy. Storage is not a problem.

Right now they are more of a hobby, but wouldn't take much to break even or get ahead.

 

[Beekissed]

Why I came out ahead:

I already owned two good dogs when I moved here and they free range on a wireless system that allows them to protect nearly my whole acre. Only one needed trained to chickens and this was accomplished with very little effort or fuss. They are my flock insurance and they really don't eat much. They eat all culled eggs, chicken scraps and leftovers, apples, deer trimmings and their own food.

I had cattle fencing on three sides and I used old fence posts that I found here to erect the fourth side along the road. The gates were either built from scrap lumber from a building my boys and I tore down for a friend, or part of a chain link fence from the same source.

The hen house was already here...it leans like a drunken sailor and has gaps as wide as my fingers in the walls and flooring....but the roof is good and it is sturdy. I opened another window across from the existing large windows that cover the back wall. I found long poles made from saplings under the coop and used them for roosts. I think these had been used for pole beans. I nailed flattened cardboard boxes inside the walls to keep most drafts out in the winter. I cover the windows with plastic in the winter.

Understandably, my coop would not win any beauty awards.....

But I find it adorable!

I already had the nest boxes but I would have built some from scrap lumber if I hadn't.

I free range my flock and only feed once in the evenings...and only what they can clean up right then. This way they have already filled their bellies with good forage and no one goes to bed hungry if they did not forage enough. Also, this cuts down on feed loss to rodents....and keeps from attracting rodents. I also have two cats who help with this.

My feeder is the old trough style feeder but I wrapped welded wire around it to prevent flicking and scratching...this prevents waste.

The building next to my coop was an old building that we cut holes into, built ramps up to, and sectioned off to include a broody pen that has an opening into the hen house. This shed also holds the dog houses and some hay.

I do not feed medicated feeds and do not have my chicks vaccinated. I feel that this only weakens the birds...any chick that cannot survive without medicated feeds were obviously already too weak to make it on my place....here only the hardy can live. These mountains are prone to weather extremes...you have to be one tough bird to live here. I'm in the business of producing a thriving flock, not a weak bunch of sissies that cannot survive without meds and coddling.

I do put unpasteurized apple cider vinegar in the water and my birds are outside and on the ground as soon as they feather out a little. The sooner the better....usually 2 wks. of age. I have never wormed a flock in all my years....never saw worms in the stool and wouldn't even if I did. Every creature has parasites~even us....and the strong ones live and thrive despite this.

I use pine shavings on the floor~$5 a bag~but have scrounged these from local sawmills before for free. I only have to use two or three bags of these per year. I supplement my deep litter with shredded paper from the office. I clean out the deep litter once or twice a year. My coop has no foul odors and my birds stay warm and toasty all winter without heat and with the pop door open at all times. We get some pretty cold winters here.

The deep litter can be turned with chicken power...just throw in a little BOSS and watch them go to town. This also keeps them occupied during deep snows.

I use broody hens to babysit mail order chicks....no lamps necessary, no pasty butts, no dead chicks. I also let broodies hatch out new flock members. I choose only hardy, dual purpose breeds known for good laying, cold tolerance and foraging abilities.

I sell my eggs for $2 a doz. and can't keep up with the demand even though I have a flock of over 30. At maximum production, I get well over two doz. a day....that comes to approx. $16 per wk, with max time for about 5 mo. out of the year.

This makes for $380 for those five mo. only...this pays for 17- 100# bags of feed. My birds use about 125# of feed per month in the winter and around 75 # during these peak production times in the spring and summer. I use about 1300 # of feed per year, give or take. My birds are paying for 1700 # of feed in only five months of peak production. They are still producing the other 7 mo. as well.

Either way you slice it, my birds have been offsetting the costs of their keep and the fencing, equipment, chicks, etc. for some long time now. I'm coming out WAY ahead. I also do not have to pay for eggs nor chicken at the store. I don't have to search far to find supplemental protein for my dogs. My eggshells are recycled back into chicken feed.

My customers save their cartons for me...and even people who aren't customers do this because they know I have chickens.

I eat all culled birds and extra roos. Everyone works here...if she isn't laying, she is soup. If the dogs did not do a good job, they wouldn't be here. If the cats do not hunt, they do not stay for long. So far, all extra staffing have been working up to par and thus I have a good working team.

I have only lost two to hawks in the four years I lived here and none where I used to live. I've lost two chicks to a snake. I lost some birds to heart failure the first year~just fell off the roost~but none since then. No birds have been ill or died from any illness or disease.

I use 2 gal. bleach jugs for killing cones.

My total chores related to chickens last about 5 min. per day. My chickens have a great life, a merciful and quick death and are repurposed as food. They are self-sustainable, hardy and productive. They make me money and look beautiful on my lawn.

And that, my dear roos and hens, is how I come out ahead!