Should You Keep Your Own Chickens?
We're gonna say "nope." But since we're all here, let's look at the recent New York Times article over the subject and consider whether the current "chicken boomlet" is right for you.
The crux of the article is that keeping your own egg-laying chickens might be an "interesting" hobby (I speak from childhood experience when I say that it is neither fun nor torturous—it's just another annoying chore), but it is not very financially rewarding. If you're just looking to save money, supermarket eggs cost less once you factor in the cost of acquiring and sheltering the hens as well as feeding them. Feed, in fact, eats up pretty much any savings.
Instead, it may be that raising your own chickens is a way to make yourself feel more self-reliant in uncertain economic or political times, sort of like stocking up on firearms.
Nancy Smith, whose family owns Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, Mo., said there were times over the last year, as the economic news grew worse and worse, that her customers seemed to be "in a panic mode" to buy birds they could begin raising at home.
"I see it as a sense of security," Ms. Smith said. "If they don't have the dollars that week to get the meat they need at the grocery store, they can go kill a chicken."
"Keeping Their Eggs in Their Backyard Nests" [New York Times]
(Photo: woodleywonderworks)
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Comments:
Agreed.
If you are only keeping them for the eggs then it's not cost effective.
Growing up I spent my summers on a farm, and when you factor in the savings you get from the meat you can save good money.
The issue is that killing, plucking, and dressing chickens take time. Are you saving enough money to justify the time spent doing so is the question.
Eggs from chickens raised on grass are nutritionally and functionally superior to those from the supermarket. All food is not created equal and the price is not a good indicator of the true cost or quality of your food.
If I did not have easy access to pastured eggs at my farmer's market, I would raise my own chickens for their eggs.
Also depends on the zoning and city ordinances where you live. I know of a few cities where they outright refuse any kind of livestock, including poultry to be kept and raised within their boundaries.
Agreed as well.
Raising chickens isnt hard at all, we used to do it all the time when I was younger. As long as you raise your own feed, your good to go.
And you dont have to fill your body with all those drugs the FDA loves pumping through you.
@VA_White:
There is also no comparison when it comes to taste. "Farm" eggs have a much more intense flavor. They even look different; the yolk is usually almost orange,not the pale yellow found in store bought eggs. Once you get used to farm eggs you don't even want the ones from the store.
As VA-White points out, they are also far superior nutritionally, especially if you let the chickens roam. This way they receive a more diverse diet than chickens who are fed only grain, or worse.
Well, the good thing about having friends with their own chickens is free eggs for me. So yes, friends, please continue to have chickens and give me all the yummy eggs!
STOP screaming about HORMONES in poultry. Unless the producer is violating a law the use of hormones in poultry of forbidden by the USDA!
Antibiotics? Allowed...and I do think that's a bad thing, but nothing bugs me more than people harping on an issue that doesn't exist.
I don't know about ducks, but my girlfriends family raises ducks (the domesticated, non-flying varieties), and both they and their eggs are pretty darn tasty. Also, ducks are supposed to be easier to take care of (according to gf's mom) because they do a better job of cleaning themselves, so you don't need to wash them (which is apparently a problem with chickens).
@BodeMiller: Yes. They actually taste like eggs. I never buy supermarket eggs anymore, not even the cage-free ones. THere is no comparison.
@bitslammer: I have given up on correcting people. My friend said she doesn't buy organic but she does buy the hormone-free chicken. *sigh* It's annoying that poultry sellers are allowed to market their chicken as "hormone-free" in the first place.
It's the OPs fault. I buy my chickens at the superstore.
My mom has raised chickens for years. She actually upped the number to about 70 or 80 which necessitated the construction of two additional coops to the one she already had (don't talk to me about digging post holes and stretching chicken wire!). Once they're all mature she'll be getting several dozen eggs a day. The main reason for this expansion is the fact that my mom bakes cookies and cakes as a side job. During the busy times she bakes almost every day in a week, and goes through a lot of eggs, especially for the cakes. She saves money on the eggs, as well as the gas to drive into town, and the time to do so. She estimates the chickens cost her about $30 in feed a month. Chicken feed :-) As an added bonus, she's been able to sell a few dozen to a couple people for about $3/dozen, and the local producer's Co-op has offered to buy her extra eggs. I don't know if they're to be sold for eating or for hatching, and she probably wouldn't get much, but it's a little extra money. Especially once all the hens are producing.
Free range eggs are definitely better than store-bought. You get more double-yolkers, and the yolks themselves are a golden orange color as opposed to pale yellow you get from the grocery store.
My parents tried slaughtering non-producing hens once. Never again. Not like it's a problem, really. Over time, the raccoons, chicken hawks, and coyotes take care of the problem.
You know Chris, so far you have advocated owing monkeys, and now chickens. I like this theme. Honestly! If you do an expose on goats for milk, I would suggest the fainting variety, as I prefer the fainting-disposed members of any species.
feed isn't that bad. We actually feed our a lot table scraps and their pretty healthy. Chickens are natures garbage disposal.
Great. Another bubble. WHEN WILL WE LEARN?!?!
@VA_White:
The USDA actually mandates what you say on the label *if* you're going to say hormone free.
NO HORMONES (pork or poultry):
Hormones are not allowed in raising hogs or poultry. Therefore, the claim "no hormones added" cannot be used on the labels of pork or poultry unless it is followed by a statement that says "Federal regulations prohibit the use of hormones."
Mom and dad had chickens on the farm, but when we moved into town after dad died, and with mom working, we didn't have any in town. She did buy eggs from local farmers, and they also sold her non producing hens that she slaughtered and cleaned for stew chickens. And as a bonus, the entertainment value of watching a nearly headless chicken carcess (the head was hanging on by a tendon) chasing my bratty nephew around the house one memorable day.
My wife and I just got two chickens for a school project. She's an architecture student, and was taking a class called "Architecture As Activism". It required the students to create something for the benefit of others, and implement it in a real life setting.
She settled on converting used 55-gallon polypropylene drums into chicken coops. I threw together a web site for her which has some pictures of the little egg-makers, as well as instructions on how to make your own. She entitled the project "chickenbarrel", and you can find the plans at [www.chickenbarrel.org] .
Our chickens are pretty cool. We let them free-range in our yard while we're at work/school, and they have eradicated an earwig problem we had in the yard. Also: their poop fertilizes, and their chicken scratching is a great way to aerate the lawn.
I have got to say: having chickens is pretty cool. The names of our chickens are Chick-Choo (the brown one) and Egg (the smaller white one). The chickenbarrel was designed for smaller chickens, and both of ours are of the Bantam variety.
Chickens are more than just egg producers. The eggs are great but if you can let your chickens free range then they also eat lots of pests and weeds and that saves on food costs as well. They also drop nice little fertilizer where ever they go. Chickens can be a great addition to your garden and yard which can save money in other ways. If you look at them as just egg producers in a cage then you are missing out. If you can't do free range consider a chicken tractor to keep your yard pest free and nicely fertilized with the bonus of getting eggs.
@bitslammer: OK, fine, how about "Chickens that aren't genetically modified to be 3x the normal size in 1/2 the time."
Thanks, Tyson.
I floated the idea of raising chickens to my wife and...instant VETO. Ah well.
Agreed - my folks raise chickens for the eggs/as a hobby, and we were spoiled growing up eating "real" eggs. The difference is astounding. Commerical eggs are all well and good for baking or whatever, but if you're just making eggs, there's no comparison.
@farcedude: However, ducks have no sphincters so they can be a bit messier than a chicken and their "waste" smells much worse.
As someone who raises chickens for show there is one other benefit to having them, watching. Just like you do with an aquarium. The birds are entertaining, relaxing to watch sitting on the back porch with a cup of coffee.
So its not just the cost or the eggs or the meat. They are actually pretty good tranquilizers.
note: I do not recommend every one go out and get a chicken until they've done their due diligence. They are not cats or dogs and do have their own special needs.
I've done the math on my own chickens. The cost of my girls' eggs, factoring in the original cost of the chicken, the cost of the electricity for the brooder lamp to raise the chicken, the cost of the equipment to water and feed them, the cost of the feed (they hardly eat chicken feed since they discovered bugs) and supplements (grit and oyster shell) and so on is $2.23/dozen and falling as they produce more eggs. Most of that is money that has already been spent. My ongoing costs are a $25 sack of organic feed every three months. In that time I get more than 120 eggs.
Organic, free-range eggs are closer to $5/dozen at the local grocery, and rising. We had a week recently where one of the hens went broody and everybody stopped laying, and I had to buy eggs. Sheesh! I was overjoyed when they resumed laying again.
The chickens also provide free labour in my compost pile, turning, breaking up chunks, and adding chicken manure, so the pile burns down faster and produces better compost, saving me a lot of work and the cost of compost to supplement my garden soil. They hunt for snails relentlessly in the garden, more efficiently than I can. I hand-raised my girls, so they are charming and fun to be around, following me around the garden cooing at me and watching what I do. They are great pets.
Sure, chickens aren't for everyone. Neither are dogs or cats.
@zigziggityzoo: After reading Michael Pollan's books, we went and bought some pasture-raised, hormone/antibiotic free chickens from the farmer's market, and then some regular chicken from the grocery store.
My husband gave me a piece of each as a taste test. The pasture-raised chicken was SO AMAZINGLY GOOD I am salivating just thinking of it. It had actual chicken flavour, as opposed to the "blank" flavour of the regular stuff.
We're total converts.
I hated having chickens. Hated the mess that you could never really clean and the work and that they weren't really endearing creatures. I pretty much eat them out of spite now. And that's from someone who lived on a farm that had a dog, up to sixteen cats, and over forty very large rabbits. I like animals, I do. I just bloody hate chickens.
@VA_White: OH yeah. My ex and I raised chickens like this (we had over forty at one point) and sold the eggs. While it wasn't profitable, the eggs were delicious and it just about paid for the feed.
I actually liked raising chickens and now that I live in town, I can't have them. Someday it would be nice to move out of town and get a few just for myself. I know how to hatch them in an incubator and everything. :)
I got some books on it. It really isn't very difficult. You don't save much but the freshness of the eggs and the chickens is what counts. I might try it out when I'm retired but not right now.
@farcedude: Turkey eggs aren't bad either. They're bigger than chicken eggs and don't taste that much different.
@_UsUrPeR_: Bantams are cute. My ex and I had some, along with Plymouth Rocks, Leghorns, Arucanas (the ones that lay the colored eggs) and something else I can't remember. I think it was Rhode Island Reds or something like that.
My favorites were the Arucanas. I loved getting pink, green, blue and yellow eggs!
For the most part chickens are pretty boring animals, but every now and then you get a few with personality.
Like this one hen that one of our dogs messed up, dislocated her beak so that the top half pointed one direction, and the bottom half pointed in the opposite direction. I called her Snaggletooth. It was pretty funny watching her try to eat a piece of dog food. It'd get stuck and she'd have to shake her head to dislodge it.
He had another hen who would either get in our garage either using the door or the cat flap in the garage door in order to eat the cat food. We chased her out so many times that eventually if we went in there and heard pecking we'd just shout "Get out chicken!" and she'd just walk out the door.
Still another that'd try to get in the garage because she wanted to nest there. She was really single-minded about it. We'd pick her up and throw her out the door and she'd actually try to turn in mid-air and come back at you. Then she'd just stand there looking at you, nonchalantly, waiting for you to leave, and if you didn't she would just try to walk around you to get in the garage, again, very nonchalantly.
The latest is a rooster, from a breed known as a turken. Endearingly ugly, looks like a cross between a chicken and a turkey, as the name suggests. Now they just need to cross breed it with a duck and they'll be able to raise turducken from a single bird!
Also, watching a dozen chickens chase after the same grasshopper is a very amusing sight.
@_UsUrPeR_: After helping my brother dig post holes and stretch chicken wire to construct two full size coops (one out of an old hog shed) for our mom, I can appreciate a chicken house of this size :-)
@utensil42: For a while we had ducks out at a stock tank that would now and then come up to the house. They crapped everywhere. Mom has sworn off all forms of water fowl for good.
@BodeMiller: The shells are also considerably harder than store bought eggs. One year we made the mistake of making confetti eggs with them. Those suckers hurt.
@kaceetheconsumer: I grew up working on a farm, and as such we had our own free range chickens. Once I moved out into town and started buying store bought eggs there was a noticeable difference in taste; store bought eggs are so bland and tasteless, you'd be amazed at the difference.
@HogwartsAlum: That's if they're in the yard and not standing on the back porch watching you through the window.
If you are growing for meat than Rabbits make more sense. They are easy to grow and breed. Their waste is fertilizer that doesn't need to be composted. Their breeding rate and grow rate allows you to get 1000% back in meat what you started with.
My aunt and uncle have a chicken coop with about 8 or 10 chickens that they use for eggs. Every time I'm there visiting they load my up with a few dozen fresh eggs. They taste so much better than the store bought ones.
We jumped on the wagon and started raising chickens for eggs this year. The most expensive part was building the coop from scratch, but that's something we can use for a long time. If we could do it again, we'd use scrap lumber to save money. Chickens are are really fun to watch and they were incredibly cute when they were little.
Feed is not expensive at all, you can get a 25-lb bag of non-organic feed for $7 on sale, it can get as expensive as $14 for organic feed full price. And we supplement their diet with weeds we pull from the garden + occasional free-range. The six chickens we have currently go through a 25-lb bag of food a month. Once they start laying, we expect to get 4-5 eggs per hen x 6 hens x 4 weeks/month = 96-120 eggs/month. If we sell the eggs at $5/dozen, we only have to sell two dozen eggs to make the feed break even.
If you really want meat, pigs have the best rate of turning human-inedible food into muscle mass.
Apparently the writer of this article believes chickens are not cost effective because EVERYONE in the world lives in the same urban area he does.
Out on a farm they make perfect sense and cost little to nothing. It's called "free-range", perhaps you have heard of it? We let our chickens run free, feed on grass, bugs (ticks), and our table scraps. We were given our first chickens for free which we raise eggs in incubators for an endless supply. Factor in the eggs we sell and the meat we get for free they actually make us money.
Oh, it's also healthier for you than buying store bought. No rewashed eggs or chemicals here.
Most "organic" food is bullshit (on the nutrition side, etc) but I can see how free-range chickens or fresh eggs could taste better.
Though I'm not sure about nutrition...
My aunt used to raise chickens for eggs. Once they got to a certain age, she'd slaughter them all.
Best tasting chicken I've ever had. No hormones, no antibiotics. Scrumptious.