When estimating some equipment you can put expenses into capital expenditure. A chick will eat an average of 1 pound of feed per week for its first 10 weeks. Aside from cost, the disadvantage of pullets is that they will not be bonded to you. It is still a popular choice since chickens enjoy picking through it and it’s easily compostable. And there you have it! For a flock of 5 chickens, you will likely spend less than $30 a month, if you feed a … Roosters are much cheaper, and you can often find a rooster for free if you want one for your flock. More important than the materials used or the appearance of the coop is how easy it is to clean. You can get a free quote on an Amish-built chicken coop here. Bantam chickens are a favorite among city dwellers for this reason. So, what eggs-actly does it cost to raise a small backyard flock anyway? Just be sure to select one large enough for the maximum number of chickens you want to raise so that you don’t have to upgrade it later if you decide to get more chickens. Photo credit: McMurray Hatchery. This is the most rewarding job involved with back yard chickens. Why would anyone raise chickens? Reading Time: 4 minutes Everyone is looking for a bargain, and raising chickens for eggs is the second rung on the homesteading ladder. It is relatively inexpensive. Manufacturer of beautiful backyard chicken coops. An adult chicken will eat approximately 1/4 pound of feed per day. These birds are generally sold around 16-22 weeks depending on the breed. Wood shavings are popular because they’re usually easier to clean out than straw. Chickens require bedding in their coop and nesting boxes. Grit. 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. If you’re not sure you have the skills required to construct a coop yourself, or you just don’t have the extra time and energy it would take, a prefab chicken coop is probably the route to go. For chicks of rarer breeds, like some types of Easter Eggers, the cost can be up to $30/bird. Outside of the cost of the chickens themselves, a beginner will need to budget for start-up costs such as a coop, brooder, nesting boxes and any other necessary equipment. 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. Average is usually around $500; Feed approximately $15.00 per month. Production hours. Even free-range chickens will need to be fed a high-quality diet consisting of commercially designed chicken feed and scratch. We raised Cornish Cross chickens. Add on the satisfaction and peace of mind that comes with knowing exactly where your eggs came from and you have the recipe for a success omelet! By making your flock as efficient as possible, the cost for raising backyard chickens doesn’t need to be all that high. Before starting your backyard chicken farm, you’ll want to shop around and compare the prices of feed, bedding, supplies and the chickens themselves. Chicken Acerage in rotation / batch. However, you may find it easier and more economical to buy older birds. However, there are numerous ways that raising chickens can actually save you money! Scratch grains. It’s easily possible for a good laying hen to produce 200 to 250 eggs each year. A high-quality coop will contain nesting boxes, roosting spaces above the ground, and good ventilation. 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. Egg consumption increased by 4.6% between 2013 and 2014.The top egg producer in the U.S., Cal-Main… with some organic options costing as much as $1.50/lb. The high acidity in the wood can also balance out the high levels of nitrogen found in chicken manure. Coop: Free (recycled materials) to $2,000 & up (new & fancy). Raising chickens is not hard, but chicken expert and author Lisa Steele (@fresheggsdaily) says, “As with any pet or livestock, chickens are a serious time commitment and require daily attention.”But, again and again, owners say there’s also a “hen zen” that comes with keeping chickens. 6. Remember, a quality coop should include nesting boxes and roosting areas off the ground and provide each chicken with about 3 square feet of space inside the chicken coop. When it comes to breeds, the average cost is around $2.00-$5.00/bird for day old chicks of common varieties like Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, and Australorp. A started pullet — a young hen that has just started to lay eggs — should cost about $15 to $20 each. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE2adCyA_o, Cost to Raise 30 Chickens on Pasture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE2adCyA_o), Purina Layena | Nutritionally Complete Layer Hen Feed Crumbles | 25 Pound (25 lb) Bag. That would raise our average price per pound to $5.67. However, a good chicken coop will last for many years, so this is a one-time expense that will be earned back over the lifetime of your birds. First is to list the cost of acquiring the chicken breed that you would like to raise. Day-old chicks are a surer bet and cost just a little bit more. The most expensive chickens in the world, the Ayam Cemani, can cost up to $2,500 per bird! All of these items can be purchased second-hand or made from recycled materials to keep your operating costs low. Four chickens can lay up to 120 eggs per month, or ten dozen. Whatever method you choose, look to find the balance between keeping your coop fresh and cutting costs by not using more bedding than necessary. When you’re first starting out, you’ll want to choose an easy breed to handle and one that will be a good layer. $1,722.02 As you can see, chicken keeping doesn't have to be expensive! GMO-Free Chicken Feed: $771.82 Total: $956.62 If you’re buying chicks, be sure to have them sexed so that you don’t end up with a set of roosters instead of hens. If you do use recycled materials, be sure they are don’t contain anything that will harm your chickens. Monthly maintenance for a handful of chickens usually costs around $20 per month after the initial setup period. This is a great age to purchase chickens, since they require much less attention than new chicks, but can still be easily tamed. Let’s do some chicken math and find out. If you do decide to buy adult chickens, be sure to get them from a reputable source to ensure they are healthy. If you have some carpentry skills, you can build a chicken coop from recycled scrap materials or repurpose an old shed or even a dog house. Chickens are fairly hardy and self-sufficient birds, and they don’t need much to be happy. Your chickens certainly will not mind if their accessories are not top-of-the-line or expensive. Hatching your own eggs is exciting, but it’s the least economical way to raise chickens. If you’re especially handy, you may be able to construct a coop out of recycled materials at a very minimal cost. Cost for 1000 local chickens for the first 23 weeks: 39 225 SEK. Again, prices vary, but they are usually only a few dollars more than pullets. A chicken coop doesn’t need to be fancy. If you’d rather have an enclosed chicken run, you’ll need a larger coop design that can accommodate it. However, direct expense is not all we need to consider. But how much do chickens cost, and does having your own backyard chickens actually save you any money? Going back to the land is all the rage these days. Rich yellow yolks - A high level of xanthophyll, a coloring... Calcium Manganese and Trace Minerals - For strong shells. Prices paid and comments from CostHelper's team of professional journalists and community of users. drastically and the more kitchen scraps you can feed your chickens, the less store-bought feed they’ll require! Sharp edges, loose wires, and rusty nails are all hazards to look out for when using recycled materials to construct an animal shelter. Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter to get your free copy of One Week to a Greener You, plus you’ll get all the latest posts, tips, … Most coops are made from wood, but you could just as easily build one from aluminum, vinyl or other durable materials. Recycle kitchen scraps and chicken waste. The exact cost varies quite a bit depending on the breed of the bird and its age at the time of purchase. However, bantam breeds are very trendy and may be more expensive to buy, so you’ll need to factor this cost into your budget. Opt for a design that can be swept out easily and which will make egg collection simple. Chickens will scratch and peck at these grains, fulfilling their natural instinctive behavior. 0.3. The least expensive feed we found was $14 for a 50lb bag which would have brought our cost down to $2.58 per pound. With a flock of 5 chickens, that’s 1000 eggs or about 83 dozen (to be conservative)! Photo Credit: Furry Tips. The more years you plan on raising backyard chickens, the lower the per/year cost of your coop. 100. By making smart choices with each of your supply purchases, you’ll be able to raise the healthiest, happiest chickens possible (and hopefully have plenty of eggs to show for it)! It’s popular for is absorbency, lack of dust, compostability, and natural antiseptic properties. It will also be secure against anything that might want to get in and eat them. If you allow your chickens to free-range in your yard, they’ll find plenty of things to eat including insects, weeds and even small lizards. It also needs to kept fresh and clean, as damp straw is the perfect breeding ground for a number of pests and diseases (like aspergillosis). Flocks are sprouting up in cities, across the countryside and in between-everywhere you look, there’s a chook! A chicken does not need anything other than commercial pellets. If your birds create more compost than you need for your own property, you always have the option to offer it for sale and further cut overall costs. Riding the wave of buzz-word frenzy, our first batch were the Freedom Rangers. Chicken droppings make for excellent fertilizer that can be used in your home garden or even sold. There would also be a considerable difference in mob effect with 500 or 1000 chooks vs 14 as well. Chicken Acerage out of rotation / batch. Save the egg-hatching experience for later when you can breed your own chickens for free if you really want. Photo Credit: Sorry Chicken, Scattering cracked corn on the ground can be an excellent supplement to other feed: it can cost under $0.20/lb. The cost of raising your own birds depends on a number of factors. Most hobby chicken owners buy day-old chicks, which cost from about $5 to $10 for three. Chicken Coop Costs A brand new, secure and well-made coop will set you back anywhere from $500, to several thousand dollars depending on what you want. If your chickens don’t free-range in the yard, you’ll need to offer scratch grains in the chicken run as a form of dietary and mental enrichment. Second, young chicks will require special husbandry. When selecting a chicken coop, make sure it’s manufactured by a company that understands chickens and their needs. Stick with the cheap and plentiful breeds and focus your money on providing the best care for your birds. 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. A compressed bale of wood shavings (3 cubic feet) costs around $6 to $10. Because the chickens will not yield any eggs for the first six months, you can expect a total investment of $180 in upkeep, bringing the total cost of your starter chickens up to $400 for six months. free quote on an Amish-built chicken coop here. When doing research on raising chickens, one of the most common questions is “how much it costs.” There is a variety of items to consider when creating a budget for raising chickens. The cost of raising chickens will vary depending on several factors, but you can get started with a backyard chicken-setup for less than $1,000, or $500 if you’re thrifty. How Much Does It Cost To Raise Meat Chickens? Kimoe 5LB 100% Natural Non-GMO dried mealworms-High-Protein for Birds,... How to Easily Determine What Killed Your Chickens, How to Stop Chickens from Pecking Each Other. Here’s EXACTLY how much it costed us to raise 57 meat chickens. Miscellaneous $10.00 per month. The conclusion is that it costs 66 401 SEK to construct a poultry house and to reach full capacity with 1000 chickens. In general, the feed will be sold in pelleted form. The downsides of straw are that it can be more expensive and harder to find in some areas, compared to other bedding types. If you want to channel your inner architect, go ahead and create your own design. For one thing, they provide food! Raising your own food is often considered a good way to cut down on costs, but is that always the case? Unfortunately, free-ranging is not enough to keep a chicken well-fed, especially if you want to harvest eggs from your hens. Unless you’re a hardcore chicken fancier, there is no need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a rare or exotic chicken. 3-5 chooks is all you need to start! On average, it costs $0.15 to feed your chickens per day, with organic feed costing at around $0.60 per pound. How much raising chickens should cost. Keeping chickens is a delightful egg-sperience that families can enjoy together no matter what their household budget. Most common chicken breeds will cost $3 to $5 per chick when purchased at this age. Besides the main costs of raising backyard chickens, there will always be those little extras that seem to pop up here and there. The cost for pullets is usually about $12-$20 more than a day-old chick of the same breed. However one of our regular subscribers Cliff asked a few questions about cost of raising meat chickens thus I wanted to go through a through experiment. By composting the waste your flock creates, you’ll avoid paying for those expensive bags of fertilizer at the store. 36. MyPetChicken.com lists farms and hatcheries that sell chickens. Chickens are omnivores who naturally subsist on a varied diet. 1. This broiler chicken farming project report presents a basic idea of the housing, feed and health care management required for raising broiler chicken and at the end of the document one can find the details about cost analysis for setting up a small farm and the profits linked to it.. Broiler chicken farming project report – scope and importance It’s also a good idea to include an outdoor run area that gives your birds access to the dirt while still offering protection from predators. Cost of 120 Chicks: $185.00 Cost of 2075 lbs. Hens will happily share a nesting box, so you only need one box for every three to four hens. The Cost of Raising Cornish Meat Chickens As you may know, we decided to raise two batches of meat chickens this year in order to avoid becoming overwhelmed on butchering day. Once the chickens start to lay eggs, you can start to recover those costs by selling the eggs or simply keeping them for your own use. Alternatively, you could go the route of building your own coop with new materials. Stick with larger shavings as smaller sizes can be quite dusty. The brooder is a large box that keeps chicks secure and warm for their first six weeks of life. Always make sure your you clean your coop out often enough that the bedding doesn’t become matted or smelly. Photo Credit: Abundant Permaculture. Don’t use sawdust! While it is initially more expensive than some other bedding materials, many people find that it requires less frequent changing, making more economical in the long run. If you’d rather buy a pre-made coop, there are many on the market. These are not commonly sold by hatcheries; you’ll probably need to find someone with chickens willing to sell them privately. Amazon product data was last updated on 2020-12-06. The benefit is, the seller might be able to tell you roughly how many eggs to expect per week. For the first while, they will need to be kept in a brooder with a heat lamp, which will require extra work and attention. Let’s be honest, if you’re raising backyard chickens and hoping to make the Fortune 500, you’re probably going to be disappointed. Essential Amino Acids - Enhanced with lysine and methionine... Key Levels of Vitamin A, D, E - Strong reproduction and... Free-ranging. If you buy eggs or intend to breed your own chickens, you’ll need an incubator. When purchasing chicks, keep in mind that even with the best care there is a good chance that one or more chicks from any given flock won’t survive to adulthood. The cheapest premade coops start around $100 and can cost upward of $1,000 or more for very large and fancy chicken mansions. Chickens also love kitchen scraps! This is the obvious one. Any enclosed structure with space for roosting and egg-laying will work for the coop itself. Here are 20+ tips and tricks I use to save even more money on chicken keeping! Monthly maintenance for a handful of chickens usually costs around $20 per month after the initial setup period. So we already know of the current selling prices of Broiler chickens-they … There is a massive variation in types of coops and how much each will cost. 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. With so much rain, even more grass would be destroyed. The first is growing your own veggies. It was common in the United States centuries ago but has only recently made a comeback as an animal bedding material. Fertilized hatching eggs generally cost $1 to $2 per egg, and they will need to be incubated and tended in order to hatch correctly. There are plenty of chicken coop plans for sale or for free. That’s a $20 per month profit above the cost of keeping the chickens. Set aside $100 for an affordable chicken coop and another $100 for miscellaneous supplies like a brooder, heat lamp and food trough. 16. Photo Credit: Counting My Chickens, Wood shavings may currently be the most popular type of bedding for chickens since they are easy to buy at most farm or home improvement stores. Add to Favorites . Freedom Ranger Meat Chicken Costs. Most people use wood shavings or straw, both of which can be purchased affordably from a feed store. Most chickens remain productive layers for between five and seven years, making chicken-keeping profitable in the long run. Whether you’re planning to keep chickens as pets or are hoping to profit from eggs or even meat sales, there are only a few things you’ll need to keep your flock happy and healthy: The most expensive part of raising chickens is setting up the coop, but there are ways to reduce those costs and keep your hens healthy even on a shoestring budget. 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