Thursday, December 18, 2008

Hi WalletPop readers: showing you the $$

I see we've got a bunch of new visitors coming over from Geoff Williams' WalletPop article on 20 unusual ways to save money: Raising chickens. Welcome to UrbanChickens.net!

Boiling it down to return on investment (after buying the coop and chickens):
  • 50 pounds of chicken feed = $15, enough to feed two chickens for six weeks
  • two chickens lay about a dozen eggs a week
  • you're paying $2.50 per dozen fresh eggs from your own back yard (compared to $4.50+ for farm fresh organic eggs in the store)
  • bonus: your birds will eat the weeds and bugs in your backyard and give you rich manure for next year's garden.
In terms of time costs, it takes about 5 minutes a day to check food/water/clean the poop tray and 20 minutes a week for a more thorough cleaning of the coop. For a more detailed list of what it takes to raise chickens on a daily basis, see my instructions for the chicken sitter post

Still interested in learning more? See my one-year recap of raising urban chickens or dive into the list of recommended chicken-raising books.

Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to leave any questions you may have in the comments below.

2 comments:

CJ said...

How is the winter working out for you though? We have two chickens in an Eglu and have been eggless for a week. There are feathers everywhere so I know the molt is starting.

I found they have become much more skittish since we can't play with them each evening when we get home from work. I'm hoping some yogurt or cooked oatmeal will win them over so I can check their combs, etc after the recent freezes.

We initially had 4 chickens (sad stories on the two we lost) and then we had a true abundance of eggs for a family of 5.

Unknown said...

Hi CJ, the winter's workng out ok for us so far, but it's been rather mild save for the cold spell this week here in Redwood City.

I, too, have noticed that Sophia is a little skittish as her feathers are growing in, but we think we got our first post-molt egg from her today.

Sorry you're down to just the two chickens, but glad to hear they're keeping you in eggs.

Happy Holidays!

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