re: Anyone planning on getting chickens with the current price of eggs?

My wife keeps asking me to build a chicken coop. She's scared of chickens so I know who will end up taking care of them. I'm not spending $500 to keep her from spending $7 a week on eggs.

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Pretty sure that if I did the math it would be cheaper to buy eggs considering how much feed they eat.

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If this is true, then how do commercial farms who sell eggs make money?

We have somewhere around 45 chickens currently.

If you add in the price of the coops and such it's a long process to break even but with the flock we have and the number of eggs we get it offsets the feed. We keep enough for us to eat each week and my wife sells them to people at work and a local baker for $5 a dozen.

One coop is 8x8 with a 30x50 run. The other is an 8x16 coop, where 8x8 of it is a coop and the other 8x8 section is for storage of all the stuff we need for the chickens. That one has a similar sized run.

They are maintenance free, we have automatic coop doors, 20 gallon waterers, 20 gallon feeders. Basically just go out each day to collect eggs and interact with them, throw them some corn, or our leftovers.

We really enjoy having them around they are fun to watch and some of them have hilarious personalities. We keep one or 2 roosters in each flock to knock up the hens and protect them. Get somewhere around 2 dozen per day.

Chickens are disgusting animals. They’re fine if you live in the country but not fine for suburbia. I tried, just two hens, and they were expensive and gross. They shite their own weight every 30 minutes. It’s unbelievable. They attract flies and rats. Their area was always muddy with poop mixed in. They were too hot in the summer, and I had to bring them into the garage in winter.

Just miserable animals unless you’re in the country and have lots of room. Don’t believe people who say it’s no problem to have a couple in a suburban backyard.

Just shop at Costco. 2 dozen eggs for $8.00 I bought a dozen at Rouses for $11.00 before I went to Costco.

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and the prices would have to increase a lot more to justify the cost of chickens

especially since we still just buy our eggs from friends for $3/dozen

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Hopefully yall are paying more than $3 anyway. If not, yall don't sound like very good friends.

no offense

Chickens will always pay for themselves, with a little leftover. Buying the coop, feeders, watered, etc is where you run into problems if you don’t have a bunch of hens. Throw a secure shelter together with scrap lumber, buy some wire and sit back and enjoy their antics. Any kitchen scraps you can give them will cut down on your feed costs.

My 13 year old daughter really wanted chickens. We got 4. We live in a subdivision. Built a coop out of lumber I had already, had to buy wire, hinges & latches. I made her design it and she did 60% of the build. I showed her what to measure & cut and where to drive the screws. They go through a bag of feed I get from Walmart, $10-$12 i think, in a bout a month. Generally get 4 eggs per day. We don't eat that many. My neighbors reap the rewards.

What I think everyone doesnt realize is with the huge price increases in chicken feed you wont be coming out ahead. A good bag of layer feed that was $7 or so 15 years ago is not over $25.

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What I think everyone doesnt realize is with the huge price increases in chicken feed you wont be coming out ahead. A good bag of layer feed that was $7 or so 15 years ago is not over $25

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not true. I have 21 laying hens and I'm averaging 18 eggs a day right now. Average cost for a dozen eggs right now is 5 dollars. So, that is 7.50 a day in egg production. It costs me 75 dollars a month to feed my 21 laying hens that are producing 225 dollars worth of eggs.