Backyard Chicken Economics: Are They Actually Cost-Effective?
Mon, May 10, 2010
Author: Joshua Levin (34 Articles)
Joshua Levin is a consultant to non-profits and their corporate partners in sustainable agriculture business development and sustainable food markets. Joshua holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship, and a BA from Harvard University. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn, NY.
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a nation-wide underground craze for backyard and urban chickens, to which I too have fallen prey. Yet the farmer in me has not yet smothered the MBA. The following is an objective analysis of whether or not the output of backyard chickens can ultimately “re-coop” the costs. The answer was surprising, and I have produced 5 key recommendations for economically raising backyard chickens.
Friends frequently ask me whether or not raising my hens is “cost-effective”. Everything I’ve read on the subject in blogs and books says NO. Instead, enthusiasts emphasize personal satisfaction and pet-potential. These are no doubt the true goals of backyard chicken-raising. Yet I am weary of deflecting this common question, and I am happy to further study my birds. Not to mention that my personal flock serves as a wonderful test case. I raise two hens (the minimum flock size) in New York City (the most costly and crowded environment). If I can do this cost-effectively, anyone can!
I’ll address assumptions as we go, but it is important to note that I have sought to save money whenever possible, using found objects and substituting my labor for fancy equipment. The most significant example is the chicken coop itself. Good wooden chicken coops for small flocks sell for $300-450. Yet it would take a long time to recoup that money. I was about to join those ranks, until I found, the dresser. . .
Returning home from a night on the town, I came across a solid wooden dresser down the block. With a weekend of work, I turned her into a chicken mansion — NYC-size. The first drawer is filled with bedding material. The second drawer is a perch. The top right drawer is a nesting box. Everything else is hollowed out. And after several iterations, I put the whole thing on stilts.
Enough fluff. Let’s populate the model:
Up-Front Costs
- 3 rolls of Chicken Wire ($17 ea): $51
- 2 Chickens ($15 ea + $20 gas): $50
- Feeder: $4.50
- Water Bottle: $4.00
- Poultry Grit (5lb, will probably last forever): $8
- Shipping for above items: $3
Total: $121
Freebies
- Coop: Built from curbside dresser
- Twist-ties: Stole from supermarket
- 2 more rolls Chicken Wire: Neighbor found in trash
Note: It may seem unfair that I acquired 2 rolls of chicken wire for free. However, I used a lot more wire than most urban chickeners, as I built a large yet narrow U-shaped run all the way around my garden.
Variable Costs per month
- Organic Feed in 25lb bag ($46; used 3/4 of it) + Shipping: $42
Note on Bedding Material: What about pine shavings for their bedding and nesting box? This is a significant cost of raising chickens and can run up to $7 p/week for two hens. Then, I discovered that one can use shredded paper! All my office paper now spends its purgatory on the floor of my chicken coop before its final resting place as the main carbon source in my compost bin.
Future Variable Cost Options per month
- Organic Feed in 50lb bag + shipping (3/8 of $83): $31.50
- Non-Organic Feed in 50lb bag + shipping (3/8 of $36): $13.50
Note: I bought my first bag of organic feed in a 25lb size, as I had no idea how much these ladies eat. In the future, you need not repeat my mistake. Based on the lowest price-points I could find online for home customers, and including shipping, I consider the two “future variable cost options” to be the two selections above.
Value Produced per Month
- 40 eggs: $20
- Fertilizer: $7.66
Total: $27.66
Note on Eggs: I calculated the egg value based on the fact that the best eggs I can buy at the market are about $5.50 p/dozen. As mine are slightly better, I’m assigning them a value of $6 p/dozen. Seems reasonable, as I would probably pay my neighbor that much for super-fresh backyard eggs. My hens are producing 5-6 eggs p/week each. It’s summer and egg-laying is seasonal, so we’ll assume 5 eggs p/week. Furthermore, this all assumes a steady rate of laying across the chicken’s lifespan, which is not accurate. But let’s see if we can recoup the costs in the first 2 years anyway, during which time laying is at its peak.
Note on Fertilizer: One hen produces about 45lbs of manure p/year. I assumed 5lbs are lost in the dirt, so we get 40lbs p/annum, or 3.33lbs p/month. This volume is then reduced by approximately 50% during composting. At the best price-point for home consumers, you can buy chicken manure fertilizer online for $3.67lb equivalent. I then assumed that homemade is 25% better quality, because it’s all natural and more diverse ingredients, as opposed to factory farming. I therefore value my composted chicken manure at $4.58 p/lb, which, at 1.67lbs of composted manure p/month, comes to $7.66.
The geekier ones among you may have already noticed that we face a serious problem. The value produced by two hens comes to $27.66 p/month, while the cost of organic feed alone is $31.50! We’re losing $4 p/month, and will certainly never recover the up-front costs.
courtesy BackYardChickens.com
Chicken feed turns out to be the real cost driver. Unless you are willing to use non-organic feed, the key to solving this dilemma turns out to be substituting some percentage of chicken feed with local organic matter. I am referring to a combination of free-ranged food (insects, seeds, and plant sprouts) and kitchen scraps. If you have a nice backyard, the former is a great option. With careful management and a lot of space, chickens can in fact be almost entirely grass-fed. And the following post on backyardchickens.com details what kitchen scraps chickens will eat.
If you can manage to achieve an ambitious 40% feed replacement with local organic matter, the following is the result of my break even analysis (how long it will take to recover all your costs, including up-front costs) using the input data I described above:
As you can see, using non-organic feed, the break even point is 6 months. Using organic feed, you can actually break even with your two backyard hens in 14 months. This is great news for urban chicken-lovers.
However, 40% use of local feed material is pushing it for most busy urbanites in small spaces. I therefore performed a sensitivity analysis to determine how much the break even point changes depending on the % of feed you replace with locally available materials:
What we learn from this sensitivity analysis is that the % of feed replacement doesn’t matter as much for non-organic feed. But for organic feed, it makes all the difference. At 50% feed replacement, you recover all of your costs within a year and you will almost be on par with using non-organic chicken feed – not to mention you will have tastier eggs. Around 18-19% feed replacement is the tipping point, at which time it will take you over 5 years to recover your costs, yet your hens will have stopped laying eggs. That’s when you know you should have bought Apple stock instead.
In conclusion, I find that it is indeed possible to raise only two chickens in urban environs and recover your costs within 1-2 years. Furthermore, based on these analyses, I offer the following 6 recommendations for economical backyard chicken-raising:
- Reduce up-front costs. Whether you build or buy your coop may determine if you ever recoup your
investment. - Organic chicken feed is the primary cost-driver. Free-range and serve kitchen scraps in order to replace at least 20% of your chickens’ food intake. 50% replacement is ideal, after which cost savings become more marginal. Furthermore, chicken wire is expensive. If you completely free-range, you save both this fixed cost and feed costs.
- Using non-organic feed – while this may be completely contrary to your mission – changes the numbers significantly and ensures cost recovery within a year.
- Adding another chicken doesn’t really matter. Because your gross margin (both # of eggs and cost of feed go up by 50%) remains about the same, it will still take roughly the same amount of time to recover your costs.
- Collecting and composting your chicken manure is a game changer. For example, at 50% feed replacement, harvesting your manure reduces your break even point with non-organic feed from 10 months to 6 months, and with organic feed from 28 months to 10 months!
At the end of the day, it would be completely irrational to decide whether or not to acquire backyard or urban chickens based on this financial analysis. For example, in the first month alone I spent something approaching 70-80 hours setting up their coop and run, chasing them through neighbors’ yards, and just watching them, none of which I included in this calculation. Obviously, no one would perform such an analysis in order to determine whether or not to get a dog – and they don’t even lay eggs! But given that you may be coming down with a case of chicken fever, this analysis can help us to better understand our own practices and where our energies are best spent when trying to contain costs.
Tags: Joshua Levin
Hi Joshua,
Really interesting analysis and you covered just about every angle from a conventional point of view. Below are a few more considerations and advantages of keeping a family flock. We’er calling this the “The Chicken Have-More” and it’s about employing chicken skill sets in a variety of ways. This includes some unintended consequences such as:
1. Enhancing Backyard Agriculture. Urban gardening and farm-yards are on the verge of a giant leap forward, ushering in a new — and necessary — era of local and home food production. People have a right to grow their own food and chickens have valuable skill-sets that can be employed in food production systems. Some of these “skill-sets” include producers of manure for fertilizer and compost, along with being mobile herbiciders and pesticiderers. And of course, they also provide eggs and meat. City Chicks shows how you can have a good meal of eggs and garden goods that only travel the short distance from your backyard.
2. Diverting Food and Yard “Waste” Out of Landfills. Chickens can help convert biomass “wastes” into organic assets such as fertilizer, compost, garden soil and eggs. This can save BIG TIME tax payer dollars from being spent solid waste management streams.
3. Decrease Oil Consumption and Lower Carbon Footprints. Commercial food systems cannot work without oil. Over 17% of America’s oil is used in agricultural production and, about 25% of this oil is used for fertilizer. The total energy input of food production, processing, packaging, transporting and storing is greater than the calories consumed. It is estimated that every person in this country requires about one gallon of oil per day just to bring food to the table. How sustainable is that? Chickens can help America kick the oil habit by decreasing the amount of oil products used in feeding ourselves … and, at the same time, keep landfills from filling up with methane-producing organic matter.
4. National Defense & Emergency Preparedness. Whoever controls your food supply controls you. Food supply — or lack of it — has created and destroyed civilizations since time began. In natural disasters food can become a matter of life or death. Keeping local chickens is even more important in times of trouble. Even with disasters, folks can still have a good meal of eggs or chicken soup. Locally produced nutritious food helps keep America strong and safe.
City Chicks ushers in a new paradigm of how to use chickens in a variety of roles that help decrease carbon footprints, save tax payer dollars and support local food supply production. And all this is done in a way that is biologically sustainable, economically equitable, and serves us, our communities, our Earth and the future generations of all beings.
Much more information is in the book: City Chicks: Keeping Micro-flocks of Chickens as Garden Helpers, Compost Creators, Bio-recyclers and Local Food Supplies. Available at bookstores, on line. or publisher direct discounts at: http://www.GoodEarthPublications.com.
May the flock be with YOU!
Pat Foreman
We’ve had chickens in the city for 6 years now. Until recently, we used a good quality feed (not organic) that costs 10 dollars for 50 lbs. A friend suggested we buy organic feed, because she believes that any corn that is not organic is GMO corn. This costs 32 dollars/ bag. I have two questions for all your chicken lovers: 1. Is Chicken feed that is not organic, likely to be GMO corn? 2. Are the eggs we are eating, if the corn is GMO, a GMO product?
Margaret
Thanks for reading, Pat, and for all your thoughts. Good luck with your book! If I may, I’d like to sum up the main ways I see your ideas affecting my recommendations:
- DEFINITELY harvest your manure
- If you fear the end of the world and/or a collapse in our food supply, it might be good to start learning how to raise chickens.
Hi Josh,
Really interesting look at raising birds. The sensitivity graph, I think was key. The more you put in, the lower your return, at a sharp angle. Good trash day hunting and space for the birds has a huge impact. Considering eggs per annum, don’t forget seasonal laying and winter housing.
Best – Jason
For seasonal laying, that’s why I did an avg of 5 eggs p/week rather than the 6 i’m currently getting. But that’s a good point on seasonal housing. I’ll need a piece of insulation for the winter.
Also, I’ve since uncovered another recommendation/strategy. Online, people are forming feed-buying groups to put in volume orders for feed at wholesale prices. This means you can get organic feed for ~$25, which, combined with the use of local organic matter that I suggest, will make a huge difference in cost recovery.
I wonder if you could create your own chicken food, somehow? if you have room for plants they might eat, or ways to grow more bugs.. a permaculture set up that feeds your chickens too.. do they like worms? There is a worm box booth at our farmer’s market, the worms are grown in a (lined) milk carton with household compost, shredded paper, etc.. very efficient and it creates super rich compost, plus tons of worms! Would the chickens love the worms?
Do they like worms?! When one gets a worm they wrestle and chase each other like madmen. Worms and slugs are they’re lobster and caviar.
See Greg’s comment way at the bottom for making one’s own food.
But I like the idea of getting such a large compost system going that you can generate enough worms for their daily consumption. Means you’ll have to be eating a lot too.
I sooo wish that I could implement this plan! I love the whole analysis. The best part though, is that chicken looking right at us next to the “note on eggs” – I love it!
Thanks Jacqueline. You’re always free to come visit mine if you can’t set up your own flock.
If you calculate the stewing hens you gain when they stop being productive layers – does that help? And what about intangibles like fun, companionship? There was a very entertaining article in the NYT years ago about a city mother and child raising chickens inside a NYC apt.
Stewing? Misty & Logan?!! I guess I didn’t think of that since I’m vegetarian, and we’re so attached to them as pets now. But perhaps I’ll turn them over to Kenji for stewing if they’re going to die anyway.
Purposely separated this out from the intangibles like companionship, since that’s hard to quantify. But that’s why I say that no one should use this analysis to decide whether or not to actually get urban hens.
There was also a great article last month in Edible Brooklyn on urban chicken-keeping in NY and how fun it is:
http://www.ediblebrooklyn.com/spring-2010/grown-your-own.htm
Take it from me….you don’t want to eat a chicken after 2-3 yrs. You might as well try to eat your shoe.
Very tough. Broilers from the supermarket are usually less than six months old. If you do stew them, boil the meat for several hours. Otherwise…very rubbery. No matter what breed.
More importanly, who’s going to clean and dress it for you? It’s a messy job and takes some knowhow with scalding hot water to get the feathers out. Trust me, I did it when I was a kid and it’s not worth it. Just let the chickens retire peacefully at the bottom of the compost bin.
Regards,
Bruce
Bruce, thanks for this tip. Is it actually okay to throw a dead chicken (who was presumably sick leading up to it’s demise) into the compost bin? This links back the Stefan’s recent post on home composting:
http://www.goodeater.org/2010/05/05/composting-sustainability-in-action-at-home/
I don’t know how many of those readers have chickens, but it would be useful to know what to do with dead pets in general. Would be nice if old Ralpho could turn into next year’s watermelons!
Hi Bruce,
Actually, supermarket broilers on average are between 6 – 8 WEEKS old (they never get past 2 months of age), which is why they are so tender. They don’t even reach sexual maturity as broilers. A “retired” laying (or stewing) hen can be quite delicious and flavorful if it is cooked properly. Also, if anyone has ever tried to eat a freshly killed chicken, big mistake. The meat needs to “rest” before being eaten. I tried that a few times and after eating stringy, rubbery meat, figured it was worth the wait.
We compost all our deceased animals – as long as you have a good volume of compost to get it good and hot and break down quickly, you should be all set! We do a lot of poultry processing, so if anyone needs a lesson on DIY poultry, let us know – accepting volunteers to help us process birds from June to October !
Cheers, Jen
Another reason why the commercial broilers are so “tender” is because they’ve been overbred to plump up faster than normal. They also have oversized breasts and legs and because they get so disproportionately big so fast they can’t really move very well (not that they have room in the large chicken factories anyway). I don’t know about you, but I’d rather take the trade-off in a bit of tenderness over eating something so overproduced. A good stew that has steeped for several hours does the trick quite nicely.
And in response to dressing out the bird, birds have much less connective tissue between their skin and the muscle tissues. If you start on their underside with a knife and just slice the few connective tissues, you can easily skin the bird leaving nice clean meat without worrying about scalding the feathers to pluck them.
Speaking in terms of what to do with the birds when they stop producing, from a closed-system POV, you should eat them. They won’t compost so much as decompose anyhow- the insects and maggots that decompose flesh aren’t the kind of beneficial insect you’d want in the garden either. Not to mention the bones that won’t break down very quickly.
It reminds me of what folks say about having children ;-p no sane person would analyze it rationally then do it.
I’ll put a visit to your chicks on my NYC list! Thanks.
How far in brooklyn do you live? We talking East NY or Park Slope or Bayridge or B-berb? Forgive me but… don’t… you need a rooster or something? Isnt that how it works? Can you shed some light… not to much tho this is a PG-13 website.
thanks
East side of Prospect Park – “Lefferts Gardens”. Just off Flatbush.
D, I’ve gotten this question even more than the “is it cost-effective question”. I usually manage to offend inquirers by asking them back: “Do you need to be fertilized to lay eggs?” It’s just that as opposed to female humans, the hens get their cycle more like every 28 hours instead of 28 days. If we spent five-thousand years breeding humans to do the same, as we’ve done with chickens, we might be having something different for breakfast. . . !
Did that go past PG-13?
Joshua,
Very interesting to read what you city dwellers have to put up with. I’ve been raising chickens for years using techniques taught by my grandparents and great grandparents. I certainly don’t have it down to a science like you. I couldn’t imagine paying shipping for feed. I drive 5 miles to the local elavator and buy 300 lbs at a time. And it is organic because I grew up with the farmer who raised it and I know what he puts on his fields. He just can’t pay the extra money for someone to label him organic.
I’m so glad to see this catching on in the city. Keep up the good work. If you’ll permit me to give you some advise….get light. Chickens won’t lay many eggs in the winter not because they’re cold, but because there is a lack of sunlight. If you have a light and keep it on all the time, they will continue to lay. I have 40 chickens and get 30-35 eggs per day in the winter. No, I’m not a full time farmer. Just carrying on the rural legacy.
Good luck,
Bruce
Thanks Bruce. This tip is huge! I have solar-powered string lights I just picked up from Ikea. Won’t be needing them in the winter, so I’ll use one to line the inside of the coop.
Ever come across a solar-powered water feeder heater? That’s one thing I could also really use. Don’t want to run a power cord all the way out to the coop, not to mention have to crack a window in the winter to plug it in in my house.
Thanks for this analysis. As it happens, my father in law has just started work on a backyard coop (he’s lives up in Westchester rather than the city) and we’ve been discussing the economics of keeping them over the long term.
In particular, this issue of using chickens for their meat came up. I was wondering whether it would be more economical to buy a rooster in order to have a source of new chicks, some of which would turn into hens, or whether it would be a better investment to simply buy new chickens.
It seem like a more complicated proposition to determine whether the capital investment in a rooster would pay off. You would of course have to factor in feed, etc., for the rooster, but also perhaps separate housing/incubation for chicks? On the upside, you would not have to pay for new chickens or the gas money to pick them up, and you might theorietically be able to sell some chicks if you had more than you needed.
And then there’s the intangible aspect of being woken up at the crack of dawn by crowing.
Phil, without doing the math, I would speculate that you can save a fair bit of money buying hens instead of raising chicks. I think the savings will be in avoiding having to incubate/feed/house chicks for several months, as a professional farm has economies of scale in doing that.
But throw this into a spreadsheet, and let us know what you come up with!. . .
Joshua,
I applaud your efforts to go as green as possible with the solar powered lights. I’m also a steward of the environment as a landscape contractor. I have a solar powered electric fence for my large animals.
I’ve never seen or heard of a solar powered water de-icer. That doesn’t mean it’s not out there. It will help, though, to use something black or wrap it with a black trash back. Ever stand on black asphalt in bare feet in July? Black absorbs the sunlight and can keep the water from freezing when temps are 25 and above. This doesn’t help on cloudy days. If the water does freeze a little, chickens can go without water for several hours.
In reference to one of the other posts….you absolutely do NOT need a rooster to have eggs. You need a rooster if you want to piss off your neighbors. They can and will crow at the crack of dawn EVERY morning. Trust me. I’ve had roosters before. More as a novelty. They are completely useless, unless you plan to hatch and incubate chicks. If you do have a rooster, it will fertilize the eggs, but it’s still fine. Just don’t let it sit around for awhile. When you crack it open you’ll see a tiny blood spot….rooster left his mark. Kinda gross really.
Another tip: When it comes time to replace your chickens, it’s more cost effective to get chicks. There are several sources of mail order stock. Your local post office will call you and you typically have to go pick them up (obviously mail carriers aren’t going to carry around a box of peeping chicks). You’ll get them a day old. You use “chick starter” for the first 6 weeks. Chicks are about a dollar a piece. Make sure you order “pullets” and not straight run. Pullets are sorted to be hens. Straight run is mix of roosters and hens. You have to dip their beaks in water so they know where it is, then just let their insticts take over. You’ll occasionally get a dumb one and have to bury it after a couple of days. Darwin at work.
My biggest piece of advise to you is: quit trying to figure this out on your own LOL. There’s millions of us in rural communities that either grew up with chickens or have them now. All you have to do is ask. You’re best resource is your county extention agent. This might actually be a joke where you live, but in most of the country, the land grant universities operate an extention office that provide information on everything from making homeade wine to how to grow aparagus. I believe NY has Cornell. My alma matter is Michigan State. If you are curious, google MSU extention and check it out.
Good luck.
These are really great tips. Thanks Bruce!
Or you could get them off of grain entirely check out what Vermont compost is doing up in Montpelier… chicken foragers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN5GGF4g0hk
Joshua, I’m wondering what % of the chicken feed you are able to provide through your own kitchen scraps collection activities. How many people are in your household?
Hey Stefan, we have two people in our household, and are probably only replacing less than 5% of feed with kitchen scraps right now. In part, that’s because I didn’t know that there were so many scraps chickens could eat! But once I found that backyardchickens.com article I linked to in my blog post above, I’ve printed it and put it on the fridge, so that should help. Also, now that I’ve done this math, I realize the financial benefits of feed replacement as well.
Joshua — Your key cost driver isn’t organic feed. It’s shipping! You can’t make chickens pay when feed is $83. for a 50-pound bag.
Out here in the sticks, 50 pounds of non-organic feed runs $12, and organic is about $20. We pay for our feed in eggs, which the feed store resells.
Our 7 chickens (there were 8, but tragedy struck) not only pay for themselves, but will pay for their $900. coop and run within, we figure, three years. And that’s at $3./dozen for eggs, and not counting fertilizer.
All you have to do is make a feed-store run, and all your calculations change.
Thanks Tamar. Love your domain name by the way.
Unfortunately I don’t have a car. But based on what people are telling me, including Owen Taylor who emailed me yesterday from Just Food in NYC, forming a community to collectively buy organic feed at wholesale prices is the way to go. Or, there’s also a shop in Queens that approaches those prices, assuming you have transport.
I punched the new numbers into the spreadsheet. Let’s assume your cost is $25 p/bag in NYC for organic feed. If, like my hens, your pair uses 3/8 of this bag p/month, then your monthly feed cost is $9.38 for two hens. This brings the break-even point down to ~ 6months for 20% feed replacement (with local organic material), and ~ 5 months for 50% feed replacement. Good deal! So not only can you recover costs in half a year, but it’s must less sensitive to the % of feed your replace with scraps/free-ranging.
The other interesting conclusion is that at that feed cost, every additional chicken you house knocks down your break-even point by ROUGHLY an additional month. So this does indeed change recommendation #4. Guess it’s not always best to shop online!
When I started raising chickens the first thing I considered was start-up costs and how to break even. I built my coop from recycled materials that I found for much cheaper on Craigslist. The cost was far less, and I was able to recycle materials that could have ended up in the trash. I’m shocked at the cost for chicken feed/shipping for you city folks! I live in Hunterdon County, NJ (about 1 hour West of NYC) and have the convienence of purchasing locally. I get it for only $13.00 a bag. Currently my flock is 24 birds, which will expand to 35 next month. To feed that many birds over the summer (less feed as I free-range) is 3 bags per month.
I live in the country, but commute to a corporate job where all my eggs are accounted for sale by coworkers. After reading your stats I definitely consider myself lucky to be able to enjoy my flock and yet still make money!
Hi Cindy, thanks for the comment. I actually grew up in Hunterdon County, and my family still lives there. Do you know Anju? She has a flock of hens as well and gives us eggs sometimes. Might be cool to link up.
Interesting analysis . . .
Another point that you missed:
Children
80% of children’s dreams are of small animals. Why?
Because their role in the productive capacity of the family is to look after the small animals (rabbits, chickens, goats, etc.). This is in their very nature. (Why do you think that marketers use animated animals to sell product to kids?)
Why is this? Because when the children look after the small animals they contribute to the welfare of the family, which gives them a sense of accomplishment and self-esteem. The natural family is the smallest ecological unit of society, and the productive economy. Everyone is part of that ecology. In the modern era, this has changed to the detriment of the social ecology. Yet, the instincts are still in the children to play this role in the natural family.
When they play this role there are many developmental gains for the children and family.
When the children care for the small animals, they learn about responsibility for other lives who depend on them.
Further, they develop their affective capacity of feeling concern for others.
This is different from having a pet dog or cat, because the chickens are productive, they make a contribution to the home economy. When the child is a part of that, it is a huge pedagogical and developmental value.
Aside from the value to the child’s development of character, there is of course the value of learning about the chickens themselves as a subject.
In a sense this kind of relationship based analysis shows the limits of a purely monetary based conception of value.
Thanks.
Columcille, this is really beautiful. I knew children love to play with chickens, and that raising small animals helps to build a sense of compassion. But I never thought of it from this angle. I don’t have children yet, but I know that I will never forget what you just wrote here when and if that time comes.
I had a blast reading about everyone’s input on how to make backyard chickens profitable. I thought that this was possible until our kids got involved. Our two girls, 6 and 10 are responsible for our flock of 20 hens and are doing an excellent job in their own way. They exchange eggs for cookies, a commodity obviously more valuable than money.
You could still imagine some profit until they decided to allow one hen to keep her eggs, which resulted in two cute chicks who became unproductive pet roosters in addition to their father. Of course the kids will tell you that this is very profitable. If you want to keep your cost low avoid mixing hens, roosters and kids.
I am a rural farmer, and just started my chicken adventures this spring. Your information is helpful for me as well, so thanks!
I thought I would share for those of you who are very urban, that Kansas (while economically limited) offers acreage at 8-1200 an acre. Imagine the possibilities! haha Happy urban farming and thanks for making my day knowing that something I do and love, is becoming important again.
Another thing to bear in mind is that chooks only lay at their peak for 2-3 years at most – which, if I’ve understood your maths correctly, is about their breakeven point. If you want to maintain the same level of egg incomings, you either need more chooks (so more costs, particularly to feed less-productive chooks) or replace the less-productive chooks with new ones (but replacing pets???), or deal with lower levels of incoming eggs.
Non-laying chooks do, of course, still produce manure so still have major value.
A co-op for feed sounds good, if you’ve got someone who can store the bulk stuff and then disseminate it to the other members. Remember to watch out for vermin!
Oh, and also remember that backyard chooks will need worming (garlic is of variable and debatable use as a preventative, and a heavy worm load can and will kill a chook, so you might need to use the chemicals for that), de-parasiting (mites, lice and ticks can occur – there are good organic preventatives however), and need higher protein intake during their annual moult-and-going-off-the-lay. Tinned catfood and mince is good for them occasionally (chooks are omnivorous, like humans, and need the proteins available in meats of all kinds, not just insects. Anyone seen a chook hunt down a mouse??).
Honestly, this is the best thing I’ve read on the web in ages. I really enjoyed this!
Gotta say things are different for the city chickens raiser. Even retail organic feed is $20 for 50# here. Other cost also are reduced outside NYC. Lots more usable items on the curb outside NYC. If fact I could sold you two hens for $10 less. Maybe even cheaper. Still great article and interesting, but just like commercial business it’s location , location, location.
Great article and follow up comments. I buy whole corn still on the cob from a local farmer. In turn have it ground at the local mill for winter feed. another suggestion is to grind there egg shells up and feed it back to them as a source of calcium. They will need calcium for egg production. The children aspect is truly priceless. The chickens have been a great relationship builder between my daughter and myself. Continued good luck with your farming.
Great analysis. I would like to see one done in an area of the country where the cost of your materials, feed and chickens(15 bucks each? WOW) is much much lower.
Nice.
I will hang the graphs in the chicken coop, good for their self-esteem.
Roosters have their place in my mix. I free range and free woods, my 2 roosters maintain a secure perimeter around my 14 hens. Here in rural Indiana foxes,raccoons and hawks like the taste of chicken. The roos will attack anything they believe threatens their ladies. Including my lawn tractor. One of the attributes I did’t see listed, they love mice.
Great thread, thanks all!
I really wish we could have a tiny flock, as well as a garden, but we have virtually no outdoor space in our SF bay area place. My in-laws have a coop and nice laying flock though. Even if $ wise it is of questionable value, the education and good food/environmental example it would teach my young kids would totally tip the scales. (Thanks for your post Columcille).
As far as roosters go, I think around here they are not legal in a non-rural setting. Even if they were, it wouldn’t be worth pi**ing off the neighbors.
@Alan: that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me on the web, so we’re tied. Thanks!
@Infoaddict: you’re right, and I really need to get on this. Thanks for the tips.
@Bob: good idea on the shells. i’ve been crushing them for my compost. for egg-laying calcium, i feed the hens the snails that come into my garden whenever it rains. just give them an initial crush under my shoe to loosen up the shells, and it’s their favorite treat!
For what it’s worth, I cook stewing hens regularly, and they are often three years old. The key is to braise them in wine or cider for 10 -12 hours at a low oven temperature (300 degrees) in a heavy covered pot fitted with a sheet of parchment paper touching the meat to keep in all the moisture. The results are succulent and have tremendous depth of flavor. My own flock of a dozen hens are now in their last summer of productivity, and this fall they will be processed for winter stews. This is what recipes like Coq au Vin are made for — old birds that need to have the toughness slow-cooked out of them.
“For what it’s worth”? I think this is a really valuable comment that’s worth a lot to a bunch of the folks above. Thanks Deborah! Since there seemed to be back-and-forth on whether the meat of mature hens is worthwhile, having an actual recipe here is key, and for me it validates what we’re trying to do at GoodEater, which is to harness the advantages of cross-sector professional knowledge. So thanks again.
I’m vegetarian, so unfortunately cannot deploy this recipe. Was a little shocked by the word “processed” for the chickens. We’ve quickly grown as attached to Misty & Logan as to family dogs or cats. I wonder if people who intend to raise their hens for meat vs. eggs actually have a different emotional perspective toward their flock?
I’ve got about 80 chooks, and have found I have different attitudes toward individuals within the flocks. Some are definitely pets – they have names, personalities, and will be with us until they die of old age, regardless of how many eggs they lay over their lifetime (or not, in the case of at least one girl).
In the very same flocks are the “livestock” chooks – they don’t have names or really obvious individual personalities, and I have no emotional ties to them. I need to sell some chooks because I have too many and they’re not what I’m focussing on, and those are the ones going (I got them as particular breeds and found out they weren’t what I was after, and I no longer wish to feed them; but they’re still laying very well, so someone else can love them).
Same with the roosters. Some are for eating, and don’t get names. Some stay, and get names. I’m in a horrible dilemma where one rooster is infertile and not doing well, and he can’t stay. He’s not purebred so no-one wants to take him and besides, no-one wants rooster just to look pretty, so I need to kill him- and I just can’t …
“Processed” means the whole process of turning a living animal into something I can cook. It sounds a bit cold and distant but is actually the only word I can think of that encompasses “killing, plucking, gutting, and resting”.
“Killing” is just the killing part, for sick roosters.
“Cull” means “to remove from one’s flock, on way or another”. It includes selling/giving away birds to someone else as well as killing/processing. It’s often seen as a synonym to “kill” but it’s not …
Hi Joshua,
Is there any chance of reprinting this article in my magazine, Edible Front Range? We’re based here in Boulder, CO and have a readership of about 100,000.
Best,
Lynne
No problem, Lynne. I’d be honored. You didn’t stick your email address above, however, so just put any direct message into the comment form on the “contact us” page and I can get back to you directly.
Hi Josh,
I really enjoyed reading this site. I just finished reading “City Chicks” by Patricia Foreman and am toying with the idea of getting a few hens. We live on about 8/10ths of an acre in suburban Maryland so we definitely have the space, I’m just not sure if I want more “beings” to take care of. I also wanted to give you a high five for your square foot garden. I started a small one last year and have DRASTICALLY enlarged it this year. I found the whole concept very inspiring. This year I came across the phrase “edible landscaping” in my travels around the web and a lightbulb went off. I’m looking for every available nook and cranny to grow food (decoratively) now.
On another note, I had the privilege of seeing a brand new film “What’s Organic About Organic” which was made by Shelley Rogers (a NYC resident like you). It doesn’t address chickens, but you and other folks on this site might want to check out her website and the movie http://whatsorganicmovie.com/. She is trying to get the film launched and it is really worth seeing.
Lastly, have you had any problems with diseases, mites, etc. with your hens so far? I’m trying to decide how much work and maintenance I’m signing up for if I do get some hens. Thanks!
Hey Josh, Great article and feedback just as good. When we lived in Kenya we used to keep about 100 chickens (just a part of our menagerie of goats, ducks, rabbits and compost worms). Apart from teaching our girls the value of pets, it is criticaly importantt that if you go away even for a few days that the new carer has to love them as much as you do. The carer needs to be committed chicken lovers or else they will get sick , stop laying and thus throwing the economics out of the window.
Gilbert
Thanks Gilbert. I must say that I think my hens are a hundred times happier now that my neighbor is allowing me to range them in her little yard. It’s hard for me to imagine going back now to a straight, dirt-bottomed, urban run.
I sense the happiness simply in that when they’re in my run, they make various noises when I come around. When they’re out in that yard, they don’t make a peep – they’re too busy foraging!
woo hoo… another kenyan farmer! Today is a glorious day ndugu!
I cant be trusted around goats. When I look at a goat all I see is Nyama Choma. Usually I end up putting out a contract on i,t and before long, its dinner.
Interesting about what you say about chickens pining. I don’t think my chickens even recognized me. And as long as they were fed and watered they were happy.
Hmmm….
Even though my chickens are only at the beginning of their third summer, they are laying significantly fewer eggs than a year ago. This has nothing to do with their caretaker, since it is always me or my husband. They actually RUN when they hear the door opening as we go outside; they follow us around the landscape clucking happily, and they are terribly curious about any task we perform out of doors. They are, to all appearances, happy birds. But we are getting about four eggs a day in the nesting boxes from a flock of eleven hens (it should be one egg a day per hen). And they eat at least one of these if we haven’t collected them instantly.
Wow… I was a poultry farmer in Kenya for about two years. I had 2 cows too so I guess I was a dairy farmer of sorts (I drank all the milk myself though- strong bones and all). I raised broilers (the white fluffy kind with no brain and no ability to lay eggs whatsoever). Anyway I made enough money to emigrate -or is it immigrate?- to the USA:) well not really but close. I bought a batch of 200 chicken every fortnight and sold them after six weeks so I had a rotating “capital” of 600 chicken at any given time (except during the the 24 hrs between the slaughter house -i know… i’m crude- and the chick incubation factory)
I spent about the same but since it was spread out over more chicken, my returns were higher. My only freebies were my fathers land and kerosene to light the lamps. Chicks need light to feed. Cant be too bright though or else they start pecking at each other toes (shiny). By morning your bound to have a few chicks running around on stumps because their toes have been completely cannibalized by the other chicks. Utterly brainless birds!
To go off on a tangent… where the heck are you Dr. Raj? You have no events, when are you coming to New York???? I’m reading your book and the verdicts still out. But so far I have to say that your framing of the worlds food crisis is absolutely scintillating not to mention apt. So when’ll it be?
Natasha, this may win as the most entertaining comment! Although a bit gruesome.
For those who don’t know, I can tell that you’re referring to Raj Patel, author of “Stuffed and Starved”. I read and enjoyed the book. Radical, yet very informative.
I spoke with him some months ago and he was swamped with the book tour. But I just checked his blog, and it looks like it’s winding down. I guess you’ll have to catch him either at Berkeley or at University of Natal, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.
Not my fault! Chicken are brutal creatures. I’d be more frightened of a giant chicken than a giant dog. Dogs can be trained.
Well thats too bad about the doctor. I found this link through his page and found all this very very interesting. A man living in the greatest metropolis on earth (NY) trying to break even by raising (2) chicken. Even my nan laughed. Much respect.
Ach, I miss my chicken!
Ta for the reply.
Some more ideas on lowering costs and increasing efficiency. For feed, you could buy corn and soy from a local farmer or grain elevator (though the latter would not likely be organic). This would run a few bucks per bushel (60 lbs.), more if organic. Granted, given your not having a car, this would be tough, but for others it’s an option. If you were raising lots of hens this option is not so great, because they’d likely be fed only on feed, and hence you’d have to make all sorts of calculations to make a concentrated feed yourself, with all the micronutrients necessary. But since you let your hens eat kitchen scraps and forage in the yard, you can fudge a bit on feed composition, as long as they’re getting more or less the right amounts of carbs and proteins from your corn and soy.
For urban food sources, you should consider talking to a local grocery store. Grocery stores throw away lots of past-its-prime produce that would allow you to substitute a lot of your feed. Likewise butcher shops might give you scraps of fat and gristle. Hell, even old bread from a bakery could be of use. Many places are twitchy about giving thrown-away stuff to people, so you might have to dumpster-dive, which is usually technically illegal.
If you’re of a mind, you can substitute some feed by putting a rabbit hutch on top of your chicken coop. Of course the rabbits need feed, but the chickens then brose over their poop and eat some of it. Even a vegetarian could do this to sell the rabbits to petstores.
One more layer of complexity is perching your chickens and/or rabbits over a tilapia pond (in the summer at least). The fish eat their poop, and the pumped wastewater from the bottom of the pond can feed your garden.
I’ve never actually done any of these things I’m advocating. I’m an agronomist, and in typical fashion I”m full of ideas that I won’t have to answer for if they don’t work out! Everything I’ve said though is at least theoretically sound, if not practical in all contexts.
Greg, thanks for a very useful comment. I think the idea of hitting up grocery stores is simple and brilliant. The fish tank/rabbit coop ones are great for those who are more adventurous.
I’ve actually been working on building a rain catchment/fish tank ON TOP of the coop to utilize that surface, but I had no idea it could go underneath.
@Natasha, turns out Raj Patel heard you.
He just posted excerpt and comments on this chicken piece on his blog, http://www.RajPatel.org
Hi
great thread. Do you have foxes in NY. They end to upset clean spead sheets. Hopefully the smell of your dogs will keep them away. I have lost many chooks to foxes here in Western Australia.
We have used chook (Australian for chicken) tractors (movable dome) quite effectively. There is a book by Linda Woodrow on permaculture which has the plans. They can be small about 1.5 yards / metres in diameter
Other things to considr is day length and lighting, moulting, rats after the feed, and broody hens.
Great post. All the best for the adventure.
Andrew
Andrew, thanks for the great comment. Fortunately we have no foxes in my neighborhood. Believe it or not, I’m actually blessed with the fact that there aren’t even raccoons or rats in our block! I was terrified at first because I had not sunk the wire under the ground. But for now, doesn’t seem to matter. No predators except stray cats and the occasional hawk.
Have you considered using a BioPod or DIY device that is similar for harvesting insects from your compost.
Protein is one of the most expensive ingredients in feed, and ecologically chickens would derive their protein from eating all kinds of insects and grubs.
To take the concept even further, once you have the protein covered the rest of the chicken diet can almost be grown on your property.
See one BioPod can produce up to 35 Lbs of protein a year from your families food waste (that is the equivalent of planting 1/10 acre of soy) by harvesting 0.5 lbs of grubs a day(average). Furthermore the grubs are like 5% calcium, which most of that is in the exoskeleton or skin of the grub, but chickens have evolved to break this down with their gizzard and aggressive digestive track.
However, a chicken doesn’t live on insects alone and typically would like to eat about:
1/3 Insect – 0.5 lbs / day = 15 lbs a month = 185 lbs a year
1/3 Grains – 0.5 lbs / day = 15 lbs / mo = 185 lbs / yr = 3 bushels / yr
1/3 Leafy Greens
The leafy greens could come from your kitchen scraps or direct foraging in your yard and it’s not hard to grow a natural grain variety. Here in Dallas we have been able to plant some native grains, oats and barleys in my friends yard in between some flower beds according to a xeriscaped pattern. Looks great and very productive because of the irrigation and it’s all organic.Also some of our leafy greens are the product from the vegetable garden and weeding of the yard.
I took my first loans when I was 25 and that helped my family a lot. Nevertheless, I need the term loan also.