The Economics of Keeping Chicken

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Apparently chicken are the 3^rd most popular “pet” kept in the UK.  As I explained in my previous post, I do love the romantic idea of them pecking away on the scrap heap and producing delicious fresh eggs. …but does it make financial sense?

Well, here’s the run down of costs:

In preparation for their arrival I bought a coup with an enclosed run.
This was supplied by the Chicken House Company
This costs………………………..£115

They need a feeder and drinker.
As they are pretty dumb birds, they will poo into their food and drink unless it is in a special feeder and drinker. The best are the hanging type.
These 2 cost ………………………..£10

The coup needs bedding – best are shavings.  As I don’t have a friendly saw mill near by, this will come from the shops at about £7 per bag.
That’s 6 bags a year, assuming cleaning weekly and a bag giving 8 batches,
annually that is………………………..£42

In the nest boxes it’s best to us hay,
annually this will cost about ………………………..£20

So that’s their housing and environment sorted.

Now for the girls, themselves.  We bought 4 Rhode Island Red hens, which are prolific layers specifically bred for their egg producing capability. They come from New Barn Farm in Longworth, Oxford and cost £6.50 each.
So that is ………………………..£26

Our 4 hens will get through a 20kg bag of pellets in 6 weeks, we need near enough 9 bags over the year,
so that comes to ………………………..£65

In order to ensure their healthy digestion and good egg shell quality we are advised to give them grit and oyster shells,
annually another………………………..£24

Although we will endeavour to keep them healthy they might need some treatment, most common of which is Red Mites.
So for such miscellaneous expenses  I’ve added an extra ………………………..£20

So keeping our four chickens for the first year will cost us a
total of ………………………..£322

How does this translate into the cost per egg?

Let’s assume that our 4 hens lay 3 eggs a day. (In fact they will probably do more. According to their breed description they will give us 3.6 eggs each day under ideal conditions.)

That translates into 1095 eggs a year, which cost us £0.29 per egg

This is in line with major supermarket’s free range eggs’ price. Whoopee! That’s pretty good!

However, I do feel our hens should have a bigger run where we can let them out most days, this will make them really happy hens. I’ve calculated the cost of materials of a large run for them, that is relatively fox and rodent proof, with an easy access gate for us to be about ………………………..£80

This does raise the price per egg to ………………………..£0.37

(… on the other hand, do we are expecting the chickens to produce for more than a year, so if the setup costs are spread over 2 years then we get back the cost of an egg being ………………………..£0.26)

The above does not account for the emotional factors like:

•  the reduced food miles
•  the improvement of our organic matter recycling by being able to feed back some of our scraps to our chickens
•  and finally the amazing lessons we can demonstrate to the Littlins by getting them involved in caring for the hens: They see the cycle of life first hand.

It’s reassuring to have the run down of costs and find it makes economic sense as well as emotional sense.

And do you know the best thing so far?  The joy and excitement as this morning Little Man found our first egg.  (The girls only arrived yesterday and it was only out of chance that we even checked.)  He ran into the house all the way upstairs to show Little Miss and Daddy what he found.  Then we fried it and her and his sister shared it for breakfast.  Now this is the life!!!

Please share your chicken related stories and links in the comments section