Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Chickens are a Win Win

He got tired of being the stupidest critter on his homestead.Chickens won out over goldfish.

Maintaining a small flock of free range (pastured) chickens really makes economic sense if you have a half acre or more of available pasture. They're a heck of a lot easier to keep than most probably suspect, and not only pay for themselves, but then some.

I started in the early spring. Initial investment setting up (including the price for the eight hens, one lost to a hawk) was about $1500.00 all told (you can start up a lot cheaper, of course). I save on the price of eggs that I normally consume (which is about seven and a half dozen per month), then take in an additional $30.00 per month from sale of the excess eggs. That $30.00 fully takes care of the cost of the organic layer feed (and other expenses) which supplements their feed off the three quarter acre pasture (bugs, grubs, wild greens, etc.), which pasture they're on from dawn till dusk (Naturally, the house sits on the acre too, so I subtracted the space taken up by it as non-pasture). Considering what I save on my own eggs consumed, they'll pay me back for the start up cost in four years (see PS).

Then there's the factor of superior eggs, far superior nutritionally to anything available at the grocery store. Even those eggs labelled "free range" there don't come close. All that's required for that grocery store label is that those chickens have access to a small plot of grass for an hour or two a day. The rest of the time they're kept enclosed, even if not caged. Yard hens, in contrast, are free to roam your property (mine's pesticide free for seven years now) searching for their own natural foods, all packed with the best nutrition a hen could possibly get (which goes right into the eggs), from dawn till dusk.

PS Factoring in the fact that in the winter they will probably stop laying till spring (which comes early here), this pushes back the time it will take for them to pay for their own start up cost a bit, so let's call it (for me) five years instead of four. During that time (here in northern Florida, it shouldn't be a long period of time, I wouldn't think), the economics of the operation dips into the red for a bit. But since most of the year it's in the black, this is no drawback in the big picture. It's an operation that more than pays for itself. Additionally, you get to look out your windows and see chickens happily wandering around, which does a heart good all by itself.

That's outdated dietary science, my friend, especially as applied to truly free rang pastured hens' eggs. It's been decades since they've discovered the fallacy in the egg restricted diet. As it turns out, cholesterol in foods you consume doesn't end up in your blood, and has zero adverse effect on your health. It's only the cholesterol that your body produces that can do that, and even then it's only a problem if you're on a poor diet otherwise, e.g., one high is refined and starchy foods.

Additionally eggs from free range, pastured, hens are loaded with omega 3 fatty acids, which is a huge boon to good health.

Prior to the 1950s, chicken meat was considered a rare delicacy, and there were no real meat specialty birds.

I have way too many predators around here for free ranging chickens. I am looking to build one of these.

http://www.mobilechickens.com/

Not even Cornish Game Hens?