I do not understand the mathematics behind the dilemma. I’m assuming only the firts chicks cost money, because down the line they will breed.
But feeding them, housing them - vitamins and doctoring costs a lot of money.
So anyone with couple or more chickens - how much does it cost to have them on the table? And realistically how many eggs do you get?
Those chicks at the supply store are for small hobby farms. The rotisserie chicken comes from a big factory farm. That factory farm either doesn’t have to pay for chicks at all (they just breed their own), or they buy them for a fraction of the retail cost by buying them in bulk directly from suppliers.
You’re not ready for Chicken Math, buddy.
Chicken math:
You have a couple of hens and a rooster. They’re pretty chill and everything’s cool. But you can’t eat the birds you have, then you wouldn’t get any eggs… Maybe you should get more birds? You wonder what it will cost you to hatch and rear some chickens. Before you’re done guestimating, one of your hens is broody, so you let it do its business.
You starting building a secondary run for momma hen and her chicks. You forget the material price, but you do notice the text message half way through the month. It’s from the bank, you’re getting close to insufficient funds on your debit card. Anyway you move some funds around and head off to the feed store. Chickens need special feed and different feeders/water dispensers.
The chicks grow and you start to see something akin to personality. You want to optimize for size, so you wait with the harvesting. Suddenly some start presenting male characteristics. But the rest? They’re too cute and you could do with a few more eggs.
While picking up considerably more feed, you notice the text message from the bank, you ignore it and start looking at that incubator that’s on sale. It doea look neat. Next spring then hens start laying eggs again, you decide to not wait for a broody hen, and you start collecting an incubator’s worth of eggs.
When the eggs are about to hatch, finally a hen has become broody, so when most egg have hatched momma gets her eggs switched with a load of chicks. You don’t have any chicks to loom at indoors now, so maybe you should hatch a few more. You’ve heard about a different breed that you want to try out, so you find eggs on facebook marketplace and drive for 2hours each way to pay 50€ for the 24 eggs your incubator can hold. Of the 24 eggs 15 are fertilized and as you miss a single critical water refill only 10 hatch. You do note that that’s 5€ per chick. But you think to your self “hey, it’s an investment, now I have this breed and can hatch more down the road”
You keep this up, and second year you are worrying that the authorities will discover that you have more than the 30 chickens you can have without registering. You’re also on a first name basis with the clerks in two feed stores and you ask about their kids ball games when you get your weekly 80kg of feed. You try to recoup some of the money by selling eggs. You have no idea what an egg costs to produce, but you can’t get yourself to charge more than about 50 cents per egg. You don’t piece it together, but your income doesn’t match your feed budget. Your bank loves you, because even though you should be able to save money for a car and a holiday, you end up getting financing for all major purchases and going on holiday is overrated anyhow. You like to stay home, who would take care of your birds?
Anyway ⬆️that’s chicken math…
All of the comments about loss leader and factory scale vs. hobby farming are huge factors. Another is the predatory nature of poultry farming in the US. I don’t know about Costco, but the other major producers, like Tyson and Perdue, have an extremely abusive relationship with contract farmers.
https://sentientmedia.org/contract-farming-makes-corporations-rich-and-family-farmers-broke/
Not to mention the breed of chicken matters immensely. The ones that are grown for meat are, in my opinion, nearly an entirely different species at this point and wouldn’t survive a year on a hobby farm.
We found several chicks that fell off a Tyson truck and added them to our flock. They all grew to be nearly featherless, fat, grotesque birds that’s broke their own legs because their bones couldn’t keep up with how quickly their meat grew. They did all die in under a year.
Ohh, you are the first one who mentioned this! Thank you for the information!
$5 is selling at a loss at this point.
Yeah, that’s why I wanted to know the real cost.
How much actual loss we are talking about?Idk I’d estimate a dollar or two. If they sold it at not a loss it would be $10 but they likely pay near $5 per chicken. The storefront usually doubles prices due to costs associated with the building, employees, food waste, etc.
I recommend the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. Author Jennifer Reese talks about the costs and hassles associated with raising chickens for the eggs, among other food subjects.
thank you for the recommendation!
Really hates canning though, or at least found it not worth it. I personally enjoy canning because I get to choose what is in them.
Canning is great if you find yourself with a windfall of free produce. Otherwise I’m kinda inclined to agree: canning isn’t worth it unless you enjoy the process and consider it a hobby.
Let’s see here now licks pencil
Raised. Fed. Butchered, Feathers Plucked/Removed. Meat Inspected, Cooked, Inspected again, Flash Frozen, Inspected Again, Packaged, Inspected Again, Paackaged again, put in controlled refrigerated cargo trucks to be dispersed across a controlled amount of grocery stores, placed on shelves by workers and is now under surveillance by a security department within that grocery store.
I have a small flock and it really depends how much you can DIY, but I’ve spent several hundred on their yard setup and equipment (food and water buckets, water heater for winter, etc.) and thats very cheap materials. This is because I live in town and part of the license stipulates they are in a fully enclosed area, not able to roam. I also built their overnight run out of 1/2 in galvanized mesh, to keep them safe from night predators, and that was expensive to do.
If you live out in the country you wont have that problem with the required fencing, but you will have predators, and if you don’t properly account for those you wont have any birds to harvest.
Chickens take several months to reach full meat bird size. The feed is like $20/50lbs and 6 go through 1-2 bags per month. I heavily supplement their food with kitchen scraps from all the people I give eggs to, so we all waste less and they have incredibly healthy eggs, which reduces their feed consumption substantially, but that feed cost is always there.
My chickens are not meat birds, mostly because I’m not allowed to have a rooster so i cant’t get hatching eggs for free, it’s not really worth repeatedly buying eggs for that purpose. I get 4-6 eggs per day every day from my 6 hens, and that is a LOT of eggs. I average a dozen every 2 days or 15 dozen per month. I supply five households with that, with occasional extra to a few others. If you plan to raise birds for eggs, make sure you have people lined up to take them before you get the birds. Tons of people have backyard flocks these days so its much easier to get eggs from random people.
If you want an economical option, i suggest raising quail. They are ready for culling at 6 weeks and while you get a lot less meat from each bird, they are much faster and cheaper to get to grown, if you get good at incubating the eggs, and keep your own breeding covey. They are also incredibly easy to slaughter and clean, mechanically speaking. Tools include very sharp scissors and a bucket and that’s all. They also only need 3sqft/bird to be happy (you’ll see 1 sqft thrown around but that’s industrial and their standards are trash, even 3 is a bit low, but they don’t seem to mind, because it means a 10-bird covey gets 30sqft of floor space), unlike chickens which need a lot more.
Thank you for your answer!
I haven’t even thought of quail! growing up we always had whole eggs in the chicken soup - you just cracked them on the side of the soup plate and ate it with the soup.Chickens take several months to reach full meat bird size. The feed is like $20/50lbs and 6 go through 1-2 bags per month.
That sounds like a lot? We have 5x the amount of birds you have and buy 2 bags of food and a bag of cracked corn every month & a half.
I don’t really pay a ton of attention to how fast i go through it, just estimating, hence the range. :) They eat a lot more in winter tho.
1 egg per day could be worth 20-30c/day to you. Maybe more for freshness and convenience value. 100 days at 6c profit or 200 days at 3c, would pay for the $6 back. End food value is bonus.
Alternatively, the chickens are pets, eggs are 100% profit 😅
They’re referred to as Hen Fruit for a reason 😂
bulk raising chickens in the millions is a totally different cost per animal ( is bulk slaughter and roasting them), than what you pay at a supply store
Yep, that’s why I am asking of how much they cost for a regular backyard chicken coop.
Had some friends that tried doing that about three years ago. They finally gave up (and moved) recently.
Gave away their 15-20 chickens, coop, fence, etc. IMHO, they are much happier now.
The cost of feed, mite treatment, lice treatment, bedding, vaccinations, etc were much higher than anything they claimed to “save”. And that’s not counting all the time and labor they put into it.
Found this with a simple web search: https://coopeduplife.com/backyard-chicken-egg-production-cost-statistics/.
The husband of a couple we know have a few chickens in a coop in their back yard. Definitely pets, but they do get eggs.
The major difference between them and a “normal” person is the wife is a veterinarian, so he pretty much has the healthcare of his birds covered.
Glad it worked out for them! I think the main reason “normal” people have trouble is that they don’t understand all the issues involved.
For example, my friends didn’t realize they had to de-lice and do other things for them. Also didn’t know to buy “laying feed” for them to be able to lay eggs.
If people want to do it as a hobby/pets/know where their food comes from/etc that’s great. Just realize what you are buying into.
Yeah, I couldn’t do it myself. The closest we got was our guinea pigs, but they are friends not food.
Yes. Friends. Until a hard winter sets in. Then can always reevaluate.
You forgot the biggest impediment. Foxes and or coyotes. Doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of suburbia they’ll find you.
As I said elsewhere, I’ve had chickens multiple times. Coyotes and foxes never killed 1, neighborhood dogs are what learn they are there and if 2 out of 3 dogs don’t hurt them, the third dog will, and will be back every chance they get. You’ll tell their owner, the owner will be more careful, and they’ll still get out eventually. So you’ll have to shoot that dog and still live in that neighborhood
Shooting **any **pets in my state is a crime if they aren’t attacking humans.
I’m in Texas and have had neighbors dogs kill 3 of our birds. After the second time it happened the cops that came out to assess the property damage told us to shoot the dog next time it came into our yard - this is in a major city.
If your animal is on other people’s property murdering other animals and causing property damage you shouldn’t be allowed to keep that animal. Especially if there are kids in the neighborhood.
I don’t disagree, but it’s a civil matter & shooting another person’s pet here will get you a court date unless they are attacking a human.
Yeah our neighbors dogs are now registered as an aggressive animal and a dangerous animal. One killed two birds and another killed a third bird and lashed out at me.
The neighbors effectively neglect the pups and don’t take them for walks or whatever. They get bored and chew through the fence to get to our flock.
Gotta be a responsible dog owner and keep the pup in your own yard…
Interesting! Thank you for your answer!
We got 50 broiling chicks for $2.50 each. We started slaughtering them after 8 weeks when they were a size 25 (2.5 kg) and had finished by 11 weeks when they were a size 38 and were beginning to break their legs.
The $5 supermarket chicken is a size 12, it’s less than 4 weeks old and is still covered in down.
Break their legs??? Have we engineered chickens to get so fat their legs fucking break from the weight?!
Yes. A modern broiler chicken grows so large, so fast, if it were not slaughtered it would die anyway. Surely a cursed existence.
Chickens have been bred to be meat bioreactors. but at that the meat is old and woody.
Wait until you hear what happens when they lay their eggs… Research from the University of Copenhagen found that around 85% of Danish laying hens suffer from keel bone fractures, which are caused by the internal pressure of laying disproportionately large eggs…
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210902124929.htm
The indigenous hen lays around 20 eggs a year, whereas a modern laying hen produces around 320 eggs a year. In other words, being a hen bred for the food industry is a full-time job. In fact, the egg laying appears to be such a strain on Danish as well as foreign hens that it results in bone fractures.
Ouch! More things I learnt in this thread than I expected… Thank you!
That is so bizarre. My dad’s had chicken for as long as I’ve been alive, and doesn’t slaughter them until much later and much bigger. I’ve never heard of them breaking their bones.
It probably depends on the variety, I know my dad is kind of into heirloom and older breeds so that’s probably a factor.
Yes.
Thank you! That was informative!
Also, places like Costco that sell $5 rotisserie chickens take a loss on them. They’re called loss leaders.
They get you in the door, and you end up spending more money on other things.
They know rotisserie chickens bring in more revenue than ad campaigns. The whole food court is a loss leader, but in Canada we get FRIES and POUTINE.
Interestingly, Princess Auto, Canada’s Harbor Freight, is now starting to install food courts.
You don’t start a chicken farm with Tractor Supply chicks is the answer. Even if you did it that way, you’re not really losing out much in the grand scheme of things.
Tractor Supply chicks are sold as glorified pets.
Fun fact: it costs next to nothing to ship chicks through the USPS because of heavy subsidies for the industry. You literally just buy a crate from a wholesaler to start a broiler farm.
They are just soo cute!
In my mind I would not have more than a dozen birds.
And I am really thinking about the old ways of keeping chickens, when every house had their dump (basically a compost pile) and the chickens did half of the work with it.
How did it actually work, what went into the trash - what did chickens get out of it (bugs, worms) - did they had to manually turn the dump, or did they just let it rot the used in the spring…
Haven’t done any research on it - it is more of a thought experiment.If you have the space they are easy pets. How many eggs depends on the breed. But 3- 5 eggs a week is usually the range. I’ve had outliers that would lay 6 a week.
In summer mine would eat hardly any food, I could gomonths off a 50lb bag as they would just eat everything in the yard. Problem with them free roaming like that is “predators”. We have coyotes and foxes here in Tennessee. Never once has a fox or coyote killed one of my chickens. Every chicken I’ve ever lost has been a neighborhood dog that has gotten loose.
So you have to ask yourself, how many chickens do you allow the dog to keep coming back and killing before you shoot the dog? Will you shoot the dog? If you don’t think you could shoot them, then you can’t protect them. Because the dog will get out again, it knows there are chickens there it can play with/kill.
My parents had 12 chickens for a few years! They’re not bad pets, nor bad starter farm animals!
Compost piles need to be churned constantly or else you’ll just have an oxidized layer on top that makes the further inwards material petrify rather than decompose. If you have hard winters, the pile will eventually freeze, so it’s super important to have it covered, and still churn it in winter so the microbes raise the temp as much as possible. Also, if it’s too dry where you are, microbes won’t break anything down.
I was thinking about them in the historical setting. They just piled up kitchen scraps and other organic waste (there was basically very little non organic waste back then) and they just let it pile up. Chickens were a huge part of managing it, it became basically zero waste circle.
I’m not going to jump into farming anytime soon - I have enough problems just trying to keep some sorrel saplings alive. I haven’t managed it yet. But thankfully I still have some seed left…
WHAT IS IT NOW?
A real gem in a sea of slop.
THAT’S RIGHT.
Chris Newman did a computer science degree at U of Maryland, then worked at Lockheed Martin, then TerpSys, then Counterpointe before quitting IT and starting a farm which he has been running for 13 years, very successfully.
Backyard chicken wranglers hatch lots of males they don’t want.
Post in fb chicken groups saying you’ll have them.
Go to chicken auctions and buy 6 for $1.
Good to know, thank you!
Before doing this, you may want to checkout the Farming while Beige youtube channel (blackbirdcoop).
In some of his videos he provides a very honest description of the work involved.
What is it now?
Fucking love that guy.
that’s right.
“you just going to throw all that into the dirty ass oil, aren’t you?”
DOUBLE-U DOUBLE-U DOUBLE-U DOT
Looney Tunes theme song plays at full volume
What is it now?
:slow grin:
It was more of a curious question. I have no energy to take on this amount of responsibility - but I might in the future. :)
Seriously go follow him, though. He talks a little about chickens. He talks a lot about politics and race. He talks also a lot about other videos. He is absolutely hilarious. Especially note the, uh, discrepancies between what he says and the subtitles. It’s an extra layer of humour.
Basically, dude is half black and half native and all bad-ass. He’s started a farm in the Richmond, VA area and sells chicken, eggs, and some other stuff, which his staff helps proces and deliver around eastern Virginia. He talks about this, and is quite hilarious.
Not everyone will appreciate him, but I feel like a lot of progressives will. He’s a lot of fun.
I checked him out, and he is definitely an acquired taste!
And he again reminded me of how different is the US kitchen to central European one. “And now we have the back part and we will make dog food out of it”.
We even had chicken head in regular soups (without the eyes) - and gizzards, liver and even other edible parts should go into the soup. I guess the only part you throw away is the digestion track - everything else is just too yummy…Well, the offal is not considered awful by probably more “rural” people, as well as soul food. People who traditionally have been more poor and so make use of more of their resources. heh.
I don’t particularly like chewy gizzards, but I ate them growing up - mom would fry a chicken and out of love fry up the heart, liver, gizzard, and neck and that would be a snack for me. And I love fried chicken livers… it pains me that I can’t find a good local source (because I try not to fry - it stinks up the apartment for days - and I’ve found that fried chicken and livers and certain other fries foods are often better in commercial operations/kitchens). heh.
Dammit, now I’m craving fried livers! lol
But… while you can find chicken feet for sure, and chicken necks, I’m not so sure about chicken heads. I’ll grant you that that one goes to my “squick” factor. heh.
I know, chicken head is now an ick factor to me also. This is just a core memory for me - seeing it getting cracked open and being offered to me to eat… And if your chicks are your pets that’s even worse :D
And fried liver - haven’t had those for a long while - tho it is really easy to mess up and turn it into a un-chewable piece of leather. You can always just cook it with onions tho - that’s definitely doable.Ah, well, I never ate animals I raised, only vegetables/fruit we grew :) But I knwo the rule: Do not give a name to what you’re planning to eat. lol
Ah, I dunno, chicken liver is alright to fry. I don’t mind if they’re medium well to very well done, they’re tasty to me. hehe.
And I can’t do onions, so no liver-and-onion for me (especially because in the US, fried liver usually means chicken (tasty) and liver and onions usually means calf (eww). lol
Yeah I was really disappointed when my grandma decided it is time to butcher my bunny when I was away for summer camp…
Have you tried liver just in the soup? Same with the cleaned up gizzard. Just put it with everything and it is a nice bite while eating the soup. There are hundreds of way enjoying it - you can even make home made pate with it - yummm.
I will definitely check him out, thank you!
Chicks at the hardware store are for the eggs
They also sell meat birds in bulk. At least ours all do.
It’s simply not economical to raise chickens. It’s like brewing beer: very labor-intensive, expensive, and heart breaking when they die, which they are very good at. It’s not a hobby to save money, despite what people tell you. The eggs are great though.
They’re also extremely sweet creatures when hand raised. They’ll come running and want to be picked up and everything. Eating them or having them die is awful.
Very true. A fox got ours and it was really traumatic. They all had names and were so sweet.
In my very limited experience that chickens can be really chicken brained. I saw owners showing off their permanent scars when a chicken had a random idea to pick at them… I bet it is depends on the breed and the owner also.
It sounds like a hobby with big benefits. You get meat and eggs hhat you know where they come from.
Probably a way lot healthier than anything from even organic food.Oh totally. But not economical.
I grew up in a village, and it was definitely economical. But village math is not city math.
You feed them grain and seeds that your neighbours grew literally right next door, in exchange for eggs laid right at your home. You let the chickens scratch around for food, and they mostly care for themselves. You bring in a rooster from the next town over occasionally to incubate the next generation. Once the hen stops laying eggs, you butcher it, and invite your neighbours for dinner.
If you try trucking in formulated commercial chicken feed and straw and such, it gets expensive fast. But in a village, it all just kind of works, and it’s basically free food. I imagine it’s a similar situation on a bigger farm. Maybe more independent, you grow your own grain and have a silo and such. But basically you don’t buy feed or chicks at all, unless it’s an emergency like a poor growing season or you need supplements.
I can attest that fresh free range eggs are better than any other eggs I’ve had since. Can’t get more organic than literally laid this morning. I will mention though some realities you may not be aware of that catch people off guard.
If you live in the city or suburbs, having chickens is more like having an exotic pet. It would take so much effort and expenses that it becomes a hobby.
- Buying food from the pet store.
- No roosters so you have to keep buying replacement chicks when they die.
- Neighbours wrinkle their noses at butchery.
- Gangs of bored cats fucking everywhere that will terrorize your animals.
- Half your yard and lawn torn up and reserved by a chicken run (they need a lot of space).
- The smell and feces buildup from too many chickens in a small space.
You can make it work, but you’re rowing uphill. The eggs will still be great, though.
The shell will be “sticky” and warm, and sometimes got a bit of poop on it. This is normal, you just wash the egg if eating today, or gently wipe if storing. Don’t wash them if you’re storing them, they have a natural barrier that prevents bacteria that doesn’t survive washing. That’s why some countries refrigerate eggs; they wash them as part of the processing stage but naturally they don’t need the fridge. They will last longer than you think in a carton, about 1 month unrefrigerated, or 4 months refrigerated.
More reading: https://coopeduplife.com/how-long-do-fresh-laid-eggs-last/
Thank you for your answer!
I mean, killing, plucking, and gutting a chicken is a huge pita. Depending on where you live, a few chickens for eggs can be done pretty cheaply. Not as easy or cheap as buying eggs.
Yeah I haven’t killed anything that wasn’t a bug - so that would.be definitely challenging part.
Dude fresh eggs are so good, I don’t have chickens but my wife’s coworker has some and we get a dozen eggs every so often. The best store bought eggs are a pale comparison. Like a good store egg has a nice yellow orange yolk but the orange yolk of healthy home hens is just amazing
To me, these seem like marginal benefits. If knowing where your food comes from is important to you for some reason, by all means, carry on.
However, every scientific discussion I’ve ever seen on organic food has found the same thing - there is no significant difference in nutritional value between certified organic food and nonorganic food. Of course, “certified” organic food is still industrially produced - just according to arcane regulations that make it more expensive. You could make a case that “organic in spirit” food is more nutrient dense in some way or other - but the lack of a real scientific definition of “organic in spirit” will make it harder to study, and I have not heard any scientific discussion of this. And improved health in people who eat organic foods are corrolational, and can be chalked up to these people caring more about their health in general, and being wealthier. All the most robust science on diet and health points to the same thing - the big factor is simply avoiding junk food. Getting farm fresh eggs is just a way to show off how much money you can throw away if you use them to make french toast covered in locally tapped mapel syrup.
All that to say, I really doubt you would find any noticeable health difference.
The benefit of keeping chickens and eating their eggs is that you get to enjoy the process. You get to watch your chicks grow into chickens, feel pride when you get the first batch of eggs, and enjoy eating those eggs (which I find are tastier than the cheapest ones at the store that I buy - though I think the taste is comparable to the fancy high price eggs my friends sometimes feed me). Do it to enjoy the process. But don’t do it under the illusion that you are saving money, saving the world, or saving your health.
Climate town did a great video about the green packaging - basically the meat industry. So yeah I’m not too keen on them, but a girl needs to eat.
You could save money with brewing your own beer, you would just need a good source of barley and malt it yourself. The malt is too expensive to save much if anything on making beer.
The mormans or latter day saints forget which are all about stockpiling, and they operate bulk stores to prepare for the end of times or whatever, and they sell 50 lb sacks for a decent price I hear, but there aren’t any near me.
Malt is the absolute cheapest part of brewing beer, I buy 55lb bags of it for $80 CAD (so like 40-60 USD), and there are multiple shops near me I can buy from. You only need a pot, a big ass mesh bag, a carboy/airlock, and a bottle capper if you don’t have swing top bottles.
To make 5 gallons of basic ass beer (yields like 48-54 bottles) you need 8-10lbs of grain (1lb of which is the fancy $2/lb malt; and 2lbs of which can be subbed for minute rice if you are doing an adjunct ale). You need 1, maybe 2oz of hops (hallertau is $2.50/oz). Yeast is $4-8 but is a 1 time cost because it’s reusable. To make an IPA your malt cost is 25% higher and your hop cost is like 4x
The economics are actually great, but that’s fully contingent on you 1) placing no value on your time, and 2) not getting hooked and spending thousands on a stainless steel, PID controlled electronic brewing system, or a 4 tap home draught system (I did both)
Ha ha, it’s easy to get carried away on equipment for sure, I do maple syrup and it’s a huge money pit and I still am no where near having everything to do it like a civilized person with a pump and mainlines to bring all the sap back to the shack rather than carrying buckets hundreds of yards. Some people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on everything. Fancy reverse osmosis stuff (can easily be 250k along for a commercial model,) fancy stainless steel tanks and boilers, pressure filters, and so forth.
I guess that isn’t such bad math even just buying the malt. I put in a woodstove though and was going to put a rack over it and malt like in the old days, that was one of the homemade ways.
Apparently barley is hard to malt well, I’ve been strongly discouraged from doing this on brewing forums. Anyway I do still brew but just sugar into liquor with a stove-top still or maple syrup wine. But I prefer Ale, especially Indian Pale.
It is much cheaper to brew beer than buy it in Australia. A carton of 24 is about $50, a $18 kit will make 60 cans worth.
