chicken are a loosing deal

Chewie,

I look at things differently than you. I have some buff orpingtons and silver laced wyndotts not because I have to but because I might have to. There are so many SHTF senarios out there that result in the food supply drying up that I am raising the chickens as a prep. I now know that I can raise them sucsesfully and I have some on hand so I don't have to try to find some.

A hen went broody so I am letting her sit on some eggs. Two hatched the day before yesterday and no more so far. At least I know I can have a self sustaining flock.

If I had the room I would raise their feed as well. Then I would always have chickens if something bad happens.

Didn't know there was anything we homesteaders do that was cost effective. You can always save or make more money doing something else or doing nothing. But I finally figured that people going fishing are losing money but if you're doing what you like, and being active, you will be healthier and live longer. And if you're unhealthy, or dead, not much else matters.

Why no eggs in the winter? Do you keep lights on for them? My hens lay just as well in the winter as long as they have 14 hours of light a day. I also start new chicks every year, and cull the old as soon as they slow down - usually before 2 years of age.

I also get light bodied hens who are more efficient - more eggs per pound of feed. I like the leghorns, and the gold stars like Hoover Hatchery has. I have tracked individual hens and some have gone almost 2 months without missing a day.

I split hens into separate pens. Some brown egg layers in with some white egg layers and count eggs. As soon as I see everyone hasn't been laying for several days, I separate and figure out who it is, eliminate her.

Many people I know have a motley flock of hens of various ages and breeds, and don't know who is laying and wonder why they cost so much for the eggs they get. They also often have roosters for no good reason.

This. I don't want to be dependent on ordering from someone else every year. Plus it's expensive. My birds happily raise their own replacements every year.

Nimrod you should try a few marans sometime - they have a much meatier carcass and lay just as well or better than what you have. I tried them around 10 years ago when they first became available here. I've had chickens on and off all my life, Marans are by far the best homestead breed as far as I'm concerned. They were developed by the French long ago as a gourmet meat bird and they really are. The meat is fantastic.

I have done broilers for several years. It can get kind of labor intensive if you run them in large numbers especially at killing time. I just do a few now, 25-30 or so.



I used to have several of these pens but sold them all and kept one. The one I kept is very similar to the one in the pic. Same dimensions and waterers, just better feeders.

This is the first time I actually beat store costs on chicken. I just feed them less than what they think they need. I didn't have any loses and they were still running (literally) at 7 weeks.
I like my birds big at butcher time. I just finished up butchering yesterday and we had 8 roos parted out and they were 50lbs. packaged. I think it was about 135 lbs total for all the birds packaged weight for 25.
I think I have about $200 in them this go round.

Imo the way the world is going we need to be learning to be and getting set up to be more self sustaining while we can, just in case. Ordering in birds every year, raising meat birds that can't stay alive till needed because their health is so poor - and raising them en masse so that they have to be stored using electricity till used, raising birds that won't or can't reproduce on their own, burning out layers by forcing them to lay year round by using lights, etc isn't sustainable. All that is fine if things continue as they are but things are looking so bad who knows what's coming. Just a thought...

We have had Orpingtons here that were good brooders; now have a few Wyandottes, keeping only a handful of "layers". Mostly what we prefer are the heavier breeds like the Cornish Roasters and/or Cornish X we get yearly from MacMurray. (Our chicken house is subdivided so we can simply add a partition during brooding times that permit lighting/heating and even air conditioning during hot summers if need be, though I prefer to raise these large birds during spring and/or fall.)

Cliff I definately agree with you about sustainability! I am interested in trying some of those Marans you speak of and have not found any local. Did find some "Cuckoo Marans" at MacMurray Hatcheries. Is this the same thing? Can you tell me if the Marans "fly" well? (I wouldn't want them flying over fencing.) Also, I've had some chickens that would attack humans so need to know if this is a type of chicken that would do such a thing. (The catalog I have does not give this type of information.)

Fixer & Handyman, those are real nice set ups you both have!

__________________
I am what I am! Acknowledging this is the beginning; and my growth is yet to end. http://motdaugrnds.com/farmsales ~~~~~ http://motdaugrnds.com

While we do not raise our poultry today for SHTF senario, we do have the means to do that when and if that happens. We do keep barred rocks and americana hens for that situation, and people like the colored eggs. But todays situation we raise cornish x and red sex links hens to make money, they grow faster and produce quickly, and that makes money quicker. Nothing wrong with making money today and keeping the future in mind for tomorrow. My Cornish cross meat birds have vey little trouble since we started putting electrolytes in their water and shutting off the lights at night. We don`t have birds that can`t walk and have heart attacks while eating themselves to death, and being in the chicken tractors they do get to walk some more. I will post pictures of our chicken tractors some time soon, they are a bit differant than the ones on here. > Thanks Marc

__________________
Our Diversified Stock Portfolio: cows and calves, alpacas, horses, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep, cats ... and a couple of dogs...
http://springvalleyfarm.4mg.com

Here there seems to be a heck of a market for chickens, even roosters. Rabbits, I canr hardly give away and I likely got around 75 of them

Cuckoo is just a color variety of Marans. Marans are some of the calmest most gentle birds I know of, never had even a testy rooster in 10 years of raising them. They are large bodied and not flighty so they don't fly around all over the place.

McMurray has only had them for a few years now so they should still be ok, but be aware that the commercial hatcheries are the reason all the old "dual-purpose" birds are not truly dual-purpose anymore. For so long now people buying from them have focused on egg laying ability and feed efficiency over body size that they bred them in that direction and they now tend to be scrawny bodied. Plus when you take away true dual purpose birds you then have a market for your frankenbirds The point being that they will be actively breeding Marans away from the heavy body size that they naturally have. They also won't give a flip about temperament. Don't know how much damage they've been able to do in just a few years though.

You can find breeders who don't have hatchery stock to buy hatching eggs or chicks from on eggbid or ebay. This lady is awesome and has been breeding marans just about since they came to the states:
Bev's Marans

I got my last bunch of black marans from her as hatching eggs. They were huge birds. The last couple of hens are getting old and I lost the last roo over the winter, I need to get back in touch with her and get more. She's a very nice lady to deal with.

My chicken tractors are made of 6" wide rough cut lumber, 10.5' x 8'. I used PVC in 10' lengths to make bows across the 8' span, and some electric conduit clamps to screw them into place. $30 in chicken wire to cover the whole thing. The lumber is free to me as we have a saw mill on the property... Across the top of the bows there is a long metal tube that is secured down and is used to hang feeders from.
PVC - $20
Bag of clamps - $4
Lumber - free, but it uses 4 long boards, probably $20-30..
Chicken wire - $30.
Metal tube - scrap
Wheels - $6
Labor - $15/hr.
_______________
$85-100 and I can walk inside of it to get a good look at the birds, catch them for processing etc, and the arch provides a nice protection from rain snow. I'll have to get some pictures up soon.

This morning one of my cornish X crowed.
I am saving back a few pullets and a couple of roosters to cross with my laying hens.
I don't have a problem raising cornish X, no losses.
Don't know the weights of those I butchered but one of them would not fit in a gallon freezer bag. They could stand on the ground and eat off my bird feeder and it is 2' tall.

@ Cliff
I just have to ask: what did you feed your marans to get eggs like that? Or is there a specific "breed line" that produces those eggs?

I ask because we purchased black copper marans several years ago specifically because we were looking for a "niche' meat bird with unusual colored eggs.

I don't know if it was the "line" or the feed (free range and 18% pellets), but the meat just wasn't ' all that'. The eggs looked mostly like Orpington tan and never got any darker. We eventually harvested the birds.

I will say that the marans were very calm and personable, and the rooster was georgeous! Took very good care of his ladies.

In His Love
Mich

I sure hope the 25 little French Black Copper Maran peepers I have in the other room under lights give me the #4 eggs I bought them for.

I didnt free range mine, had some loss ended up at $6.97 a bird with feed cost and initial purchase price.

__________________
http://homesteddinmomsworld.blogspot.com

Back a couple years ago, with high feed prices and the cost of making the tractor, I found the free culls we had received ended up costing about that.

Last night there was an ad on tv for Sav-a-lot. Chicken leg quarters 50 cents a pound. In a SHTF situation, I think I'd rather have the cash I save now. The same goes with the garden. Knowing how to do it, and knowing to avoid the big mistakes is enough for me.

__________________
George Washington did not run and hide.

Where I live you can get free broiler chickens. Just have to butcher them yourself.
Don't know of anyone who will take them.

That was a pic I grabbed off the internet while I was posting, I don't have any of mine, sry.

I would say you just had bad bloodlines - probably diluted with some other kind of chicken from what you're saying. Egg color is what defines true marans. Look at what Bev Davis has to say about it:
TRUE Marans

I don't know that feed affects egg color much, you'd have to research that. Mine free range with supplemental layer pellets.

Raising chickens is just like all the rest of the homesteading projects.... unprofitable most likely when done by itself. However, a lot of those costs can be reduced when incorporated with other homesteading projects. For example.... if you are also raising pigs, and cows, you can reutilize resources. The "free" fertilizer they provide can be used to grow more feed for themselves along with your garden veggies, plus the grains that are normally lost when feeding cattle and pigs can be utilized by the chickens if they are granted access to it. Table scraps can be utilized by pigs and chickens both... those scraps from processing veggies are also excellent sources of nutrition for a variety of critters. The object is to utilize all of the resources from each segment of your homesteading projects... even those wood chips and sawdust from your carpentry projects can be utilized somewhere around the homestead if you have a versatile program in place.... waste not - want not.

__________________
"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

Birds from a hatchery can get expensive. We get them from an Amish feed store about 20 miles away. The birds are reasonable ( Cornish X for 55 cents each) providing you buy 6 pounds of feed per bird. Their meat grower feed is $24.50 per hundred pounds this year. Fifty chicks and 300 pounds of feed is $101.00 total, a hair over 2 bucks a bird. That amount of feed will grow them to fryer size. If you want them bigger, it would require more feed.

__________________
Dear Math, it is time you grew up and solved your own problems.

We stopped growing chickens for eggs. It just cost too much. The only place they wanted to eat was in my garden. Feed cost $1/bird/week. We couldn't give away the eggs. I hate that we had to go back to store eggs but you've gotta do what you gotta do.

OP, are you talking about Hutterites? Have you seen the new show about them? I did some googling and they are anabaptists like the Amish and Mennonites.

__________________
Moms don't look at things like normal people.
-----DD