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Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

(civileats.com)
310 points greenie_beans | 1 comments | 19 Feb 25 21:46 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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Jgrubb ◴[19 Feb 25 23:18 UTC] No.43109033[source]▶
To save money? Absolutely not. I'm keeping a spreadsheet on our 20 chickens this year. They're young, so input is very high while output is still ramping but I'm guessing it's $7-8 dozen in food costs alone (the highest end organic feed tho), never mind the initial buyin.
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sepositus ◴[19 Feb 25 23:28 UTC] No.43109138[source]▶
We have 10 (backyard) chickens and spend about $40/mo in feed. We average about five eggs per day when they are laying, so let's say that's 150 eggs per month. That's $0.26/egg or $3.20 a dozen.

But we have to factor in around 4 months of them not laying during the winter. So for laying months, that brings the feed price to around $60/mo or $4.80 a dozen.

So yeah, at current prices, it's worth it for us. I also haven't factored in the value of their compost, which is really quite expensive when you're buying as much as they generate, so it's probably even cheaper than listed.

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1. silisili ◴[20 Feb 25 06:32 UTC] No.43111759[source]▶
FWIW, you can get generally better results with different breeds. Golden Comets or ISA Browns will typically get you 1 per day per chicken. In reality if you had 10 you'd likely get 8 or 9 per day. They also seem to lay in the winter better than many. Unfortunately they just don't live long so it's a constant cycling process.