Selfsufficientish.com

Millymollymandy wrote:
Annpan you also have to think about what you'll do with the hens when they stop laying. I've got 3 old biddies who are just pets these days, and one youngster who lays about 6 eggs a week, which we can just about get through between the 2 of us.

Yup... I think, I think, I would like to eat 'um.... but I really can't tell until they are here. I find it hypocritical to eat meat when one is unwilling to face killing an animal oneself... It is one of those things... I might need someone to come and do it for me the first few times, JohnM really doesn't fancy it though

I think that I have a few buyers for eggs already - several locals are nostalgic about eggs they had when they were little, I could probably shift a dozen+ a week

there are dispatchers now for bumping off hens.. either hand held or wall mounted - if you want to be confident about the job. Stonehead has some good info on his blog on killing and drawing a chicken.

If you are producing eggs to sell quasi commercially then the figures possibly don't add up so well. BUT, if you are keeping a few chicken for your own eggs then I don't understand some of the costs quoted here.

I bought 3 pullets about 6 weeks ago that cost me €7 each. With a low wattage bulb in their house for about 3 hours a night during the dark winter months they will lay continuously until late autumn 2009.

I bought a bag of layers pellets yesterday for €8.10 and eked out with cooked potato peelings and bread crusts, that will last me about 3 months.
In that 3 months I should get at least 260 eggs.

Not counting the electricity for the 9 watt low energy bulb, over the 18 months or so that they will lay, they will eat about 6 bags of feed and produce about 1550 eggs.
Total cost at today's prices .. 6 x €8.10 = €48.60 for food. Hens cost €21.00, totalling about €70 or about 55c (44p) a dozen for the eggs.

I don't count the cost of wire netting or housing as I built a permanent house and run years ago that has served many generations of hens and must have well and truly paid for itself by now.

Hope that helps.
Tony.

My flock at the moment consists of one amiable Araucana rooster, 3 Araucana pullets and one hen, one Dorking hen, and two small bantams of mixed parentage. Long term I will be breeding the Araucanas which are a rare breed here, and trying to improve them.

I haven't been through a full year with my chooks yet so I don't know for sure what the laying rate will be long term, but so far, they have more than paid for their feed in eggs - and this is allowing for some freeloading (feeding chicks that have not reached laying age, hens that are moulting, and several eggless months over winter). Before they all moulted and shut up shop for winter, two hens and two bantams were just enough to keep us in eggs, but with no surplus. By spring I expect the 3 young pullets will also be producing, and I will have enough for baking as well.
Currently I feed them on sprouted wheat, a small amount of layer's mash, sunflower seeds, and a selection of whatever else is available - surplus fruit and gone-to-seed vegetables from the garden, acorns, left over bread, and kitchen scraps. All this works well on a small scale in conjunction with a vegetable garden.
In the last 6 months the cost of store bought eggs has gone up noticeably - it is around 60-70 cents per egg now for free range eggs, but the wheat I buy has maybe increased by less than a dollar a sack.

Some points to consider when deciding if hens are economical:

Previously I usually bought several sacks of manure a year for the vegetable garden. As this is now being supplied by the chickens, that saving covers the cost of a month's worth of feed. They're effective at shredding garden waste for you too :)

I'm planning to put a clutch or two of rare breed eggs under the bantams each year, keep a couple of pullets for breeding and sell the rest at 2-3 months. Depending on the breed (and number of roosters) this also has the potential to cover the feed and bedding bill.

If you have homegrown eggs to use up, you are more inclined to eat them, and come up with some egg based dishes where you might have used meat instead, which represents a cash saving each time.

Stonehead wrote:I can legally kill a pig and eat it myself, but I can't legally provide it to anyone else to eat—including family members and visitors.

as i understand the law, home killed pork can be eaten by anyone normally resident in your household.

it is for sheep and beek that only the person who kills the beast is legally allowed to eat it.