If you’re handy or have some carpentry skills, you can build your own chicken coop. These are not commonly sold by hatcheries; you’ll probably need to find someone with chickens willing to sell them privately. Scratch grains. Why would anyone raise chickens? First is to list the cost of acquiring the chicken breed that you would like to raise. Bantam chicken breeds are smaller than other chickens and have become quite popular as pets. While each method has its own fans, we’ll focus on wood shavings, straw, and hemp as they are the most popular, due in part to their compostability and easy availability at most hardware or animal supply stores. Raising backyard chickens is really easy and a lot of fun, too. There are plenty of chicken coop plans for sale or for free. The high acidity in the wood can also balance out the high levels of nitrogen found in chicken manure. Factors that influence the cost of a backyard chicken farm include the initial cost of your hens, how many hens you intend to raise, what type of coop you’re setting up, how you feed your chickens and general husbandry practices. They can also start laying eggs right away. ), You may even consider selling extra eggs to friends and neighbors. Grit. On average, it costs $0.15 to feed your chickens per day, with organic feed costing at around $0.60 per pound. A chick will eat an average of 1 pound ⦠Plan for the long-term (for example, buy a backyard chicken coop that will last for decades). Some of the eggs you buy may be duds. Rich yellow yolks - A high level of xanthophyll, a coloring... Calcium Manganese and Trace Minerals - For strong shells. We compare ⦠For one thing, they provide food! Kitchen scraps. More square footage is better. Just to give you an idea, here is an example of the breakdown of when we raised 30 meat chickens. That would raise our average price per pound to $5.67. Photo credit: Dulles Moms. On average, baby sexed chicks can cost $2 to $5 each, and this price depends on the age (price peaks at around 21 weeks of age), sex (females cost more than males) and also how rare the breed is.You can expect to pay an upward of $18 to $30 for a rare breed. If you’re just getting started with chickens, avoid buying eggs. Here are 20+ tips and tricks I use to save even more money on chicken keeping! This is exactly how much it costs to raise 80 chickens for 1 year. This is the other ongoing cost of raising chickens, but good composting techniques can provide some additional return on investment. Popular backyard chicken breeds are often the cheapest. Keeping all of that in mind, once all of the profits and expenses are tallied, keeping chickens may cost nothing or even make you money every month. 6. Don’t use sawdust! So how does feed affect the cost of raising backyard chickens? The least expensive feed we found was $14 for a 50lb bag which would have brought our cost down to $2.58 per pound. However, you may find it easier and more economical to buy older birds. An adult chicken will eat approximately 1/4 pound of feed per day. Reading Time: 4 minutes Everyone is looking for a bargain, and raising chickens for eggs is the second rung on the homesteading ladder. As noted, chickens will enjoy foraging for their own snacks and can be helpful in eliminating insects and weeds from your yard. The cost of a coop is one of the biggest variables in raising birds as prices can vary dramatically. Marketing Hours. Keep an eye out for “free to a good home” ads. A 50 pound bag of chicken feed at the feed store or purchased online might cost you anywhere from $10 to $35 depending on the brand and quality. The downsides of straw are that it can be more expensive and harder to find in some areas, compared to other bedding types. Besides the main costs of raising backyard chickens, there will always be those little extras that seem to pop up here and there. Well that is going to depend upon your market, of course. How much raising chickens should cost. Sharp edges, loose wires, and rusty nails are all hazards to look out for when using recycled materials to construct an animal shelter. Stick with larger shavings as smaller sizes can be quite dusty. I know my parents have sometimes remarked that it cost more in water to grow themselves a tomato than it would cost to simply buy one from the store. Dec 17, 2015 - How much does it cost to keep chickens? Photo credit: McMurray Hatchery. The most expensive chickens in the world, the Ayam Cemani, can cost up to $2,500 per bird! Let’s look at the specific costs that go into raising backyard chickens. Ready-to-lay chickens, called pullets, cost about $15 to $25 each. First, you’ll need to wait up to six months to start receiving eggs, which means you’ll spend money feeding and housing birds that are not producing any profit. The minimum rule of thumb is about 2 to 3 square feet per chicken inside the chicken coop, and 8 to 10 square feet per chicken in an outside run. Over a 5-year span, it’s safe to figure on a coop being about 30%-50% of your total costs. Plan on one square foot of brood space per chicken. And last, but not least, gather the eggs. However, there are numerous ways that raising chickens can actually save you money! Essential Amino Acids - Enhanced with lysine and methionine... Key Levels of Vitamin A, D, E - Strong reproduction and... Free-ranging. It will also be secure against anything that might want to get in and eat them. Some of the fancy chicken breeds might be very expensive to buy, and certain breeds such as silkies require special upkeep and maintenance that will add to your husbandry costs. More important than the materials used or the appearance of the coop is how easy it is to clean. The first step to chicken farming is, of course, buying chickens. Backyard Chicken Coops Manufacturer Since 2007. A compressed bale of wood shavings (3 cubic feet) costs around $6 to $10. Hereâs EXACTLY how much it costed us to raise 57 meat chickens. With local, free-range eggs going for at least $3.00/dozen in many parts of the US, that’s several hundred dollars of savings right there. MyPetChicken.com lists farms and hatcheries that sell chickens. Keep in mind that the bigger the chicken, the more expensive its upkeep will cost. If you buy eggs or intend to breed your own chickens, you’ll need an incubator. 16. If you don’t want to wait several months for your chickens to start laying, you may want to spend a little more money to buy “started pullets,” which are older hens. To guarantee that you’ll get eggs right away, an adult hen is the best choice. free quote on an Amish-built chicken coop here. There are folks who will pay a premium for farm-raised chicken but you have to be in a market where they will do that. Finishing weight. How Many Chickens Can Share a Nesting Box? Just be sure to avoid giving your chickens anything with egg or eggshell as it may give them a taste for egg, which can lead to breaking and eating eggs in the nest. A chick will eat an average of 1 pound of feed per week for its first 10 weeks. And there you have it! In either case, there are many commercial coops on the market for less than $200. This will cost another $100 or so as well as the time investment involved in watching and hatching the eggs. Chickens also love kitchen scraps! In this video I break down the cost of raising meat chickens. The benefit of this is obvious: hopefully no months of waiting to start enjoying eggs from your backyard flock! That means we should actually be raising chickens 4 times a year but we typically do it 2-3 times over the summer months as it is easier that way. Number of Chickens/Batch. Photo Credit: Abundant Permaculture. But how much do chickens cost, and does having your own backyard chickens actually save you any money? Aside from cost, the disadvantage of pullets is that they will not be bonded to you. The cheapest premade coops start around $100 and can cost upward of $1,000 or more for very large and fancy chicken mansions. The incubator will cost at least $100, and you’ll need to factor in the time commitment involved with safely hatching the eggs as well. 36. Rare breeds may cost up to $100 per chick, but there is little need to spend that much unless you intend to show them. The more years you plan on raising backyard chickens, the lower the per/year cost of your coop. If you have a fenced-in yard and don’t mind allowing your chickens to free-range throughout the day, you can get by with a small coop. These are the cheapest to purchase upfront, but they will also require the largest amount of feed and other supplies before you start to get any return in terms of eggs. If you’re especially handy, you may be able to construct a coop out of recycled materials at a very minimal cost. Remember two tips that will help you save on your feed costs: buying feed in bulk will bring down your cost/lb. How Much Does It Cost To Raise Meat Chickens? Chickens will scratch and peck at these grains, fulfilling their natural instinctive behavior. The exact cost varies quite a bit depending on the breed of the bird and its age at the time of purchase. Average is usually around $500; Feed approximately $15.00 per month. Todd Graves had the initial idea for a chicken finger restaurant while in college and his professor told him the idea would never work. (Get it? Cost for 1000 local chickens for the first 23 weeks: 39 225 SEK. If you’d rather buy a pre-made coop, there are many on the market. Chicken droppings make for excellent fertilizer that can be used in your home garden or even sold. Time is the bigger expenditure: Chicks have to be watched. We raised Cornish Cross chickens. There are roughly 4 ages at which chickens are commonly sold: day-old chicks, pullets, point-of-lay birds, and adult hens. The first is growing your own veggies. Letâs do some chicken math and find out. I considered 10 cost items: buying and raising a chick to egg laying age, shelter and yard space, food, mobile tractors, utilities, labor, packaging, transportation, land, and supplies for raising chickens for eggs. Someone even used an old washing machine! Photo Credit: Backyard Chickens. Commercial chicken feed is primarily made up of cereal grains such as wheat, barley and sorghum. 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