You need Chickens on a Homestead!!!

 

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Chickens, ya just gotta love chickens!  Here at the  homestead we have had chickens for a little over a year now and I just  don’t know of any other animal that can do the work of a chicken.  One  of the permaculture philosophies that makes its way into all of our  decision making here is that no matter what you do there should be at  least three benefits, well chickens have way more than three! 

  Meat·                                       Eggs·                               Soil regeneration·                  Compost contributor (Chicken Poop)·         Soil preparation for gardening·                         Pest control (they love bugs)·                          Income stream 

See video here 

So, let’s take a look at the last item, income stream.  We just  purchased 30 chicks, they will live on this earth for 2 years and 9  months and they need to be fed.  We raise our chickens on pasture/free  range, so during the summer months here in Kentucky (Lasts 10 months),  they get better than half of the nutrition from grass and bugs, for the  other half we supplement grains.  For two to three months a year they  will get a full ration of grain which equals one third a pound of feed  per bird per day. Now we have already invested in the  infrastructure for our flocks including poultry fencing, solar power for  the fencing, a mobile chicken coop, water containers and feeders, but  for this exercise lets allocate $20 to infrastructure. 

 These birds will produce one egg every 30 to 36 hours so on average we  will get 20 to 24 eggs a day.  We run our birds through two egg laying  season then they are culled as roasters.  Each chicken will weigh around  6lbs and we will sell them for $3 lb. 

 

So the simplified numbers look like this……

Income:20 eggs X 730 Days = 14,600 eggs or 1,216 dozen                              1,216 X $2.0=     $2,432.00

Chicken Sales 30 birds @6lbs = 180lbs                                                                180 X $3.0=         $540.00 

Total Income     $2972.00Expenses:

Cost of chicks                                                                                                             30 X $1.90            $57.00

Cost of feed at full ration (to account for feed during grow up)                                                                                      

                                                                                                          $1.90 per day X 730 days=           $1,460.00                    

                                                                                                             Total expenses                 $1,387.00                  

                                                                                                            Total Profit                         $1,585.00

Now  you may be thinking we don’t have any labor figured in here and you  would be correct.  Chickens as far as animals go are almost labor free  if they live in a coop and fenced off area.  Ours on the other hand are a  little more labor intensive as we move them almost weekly behind the  cattle to control the flies (chickens love fly larva!), this keeps our  feed costs down, give us better tasting eggs.  Now there is the other  benefit, we won’t need to buy eggs or chicken from the grocery store and  quite frankly we don’t want that chemical infused, chlorine bathed meat  or antibiotic infused, radiated eggs.You will also notice there  are no fees for say antibiotics, growth hormones or vet bills.  Free  range chickens don’t need any of that, the mega producers need all that  stuff because their animals are grown in a barn very, very close  together say 5000 birds in a small barn, they get sick from literally  being on top of one another all the time, it is pretty sick to see, not  to mention all those chemicals they feed to the public.

 It does not take a lot of room to raise chickens, many city folks are  raising them in their back yards and I have seen some on patios!   Chickens are scalable the exercise above is for 30 chickens. The number  gets better if you raise 300 hundred chickens and the labor factor is  the same.  I have a few mentors, they probably don’t know it but they  have helped me tremendously in our chicken raising efforts.  

For detailed  information on raising chickens, check out Justin Rhodes at Abundant  Permaculture, Geoff Lawton at Permaculture on Line and of course the  master, Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms.  If you are going to homestead  and incorporate permaculture, my belief is you need chickens! 

Links to mentors:Justin Rhodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOSGEokQQcdAVFuL_Aq8dlg

Geoff Lawton: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_r1ELEvAuN0peKUxI0Umw

The master! Joel Salatin: http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

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