does anyone make a living, keeping chickens?

[Wellington Boot]

Just dreaming really, but I'd love to be able to jack in my crappy job and earn a living looking after chickens. I know just producing eggs wouldn't make much cash, but maybe I could do that along side something else. Maybe breeding, or setting up a chicken hotel (no idea what they are called, a place for chickens to stay while their owners go on holiday) ???

Has anyone done/considered anything like that?

Nx

[eclaire]

Chicken hotels do exist so someone somewhere must be managing it! From what I've seen most people do other things too. one fo the farms I'm looking at - temptingly- also breeds micro pigs. (No! Bad Claire! You are not having a pig! Especially if it can't be turned into bacon! Ahem.)

Other ones go down the breeding and supplying route or sell seeds, veg, plants etc.

Could you drop some hours in your job while you have a go at other stuff?

[aceface]

i dont make a living keeping hens but my girls have a full time job they produce manure and sell it to the ;lads on the allotment for a couple of bag and they use it to buy their feed and put alot of it towards their new Walk-in-Run ,needless to say they work tirelessly and without a moan or groan to be heard they are very frugal self sufficient girls and recycling is their main aim they are little

apparently it is about 15 pounds a tub to buy so i get shut of their droppings and they use it and also buy the eggs ao it only covers their costs really but if you have a whole heap o chooks mebbe you could make a million

[pepi]

i dont make a living keeping hens but my girls have a full time job they produce manure and sell it to the ;lads on the allotment for a couple of bag and they use it to buy their feed and put alot of it towards their new Walk-in-Run ,needless to say they work tirelessly and without a moan or groan to be heard they are very frugal self sufficient girls and recycling is their main aim they are little

Gosh Ace, arent you the slave driver, making £££ out of your poor girls labour tsk tsk

[Wellington Boot]

he he he, I never would have thought you could make a living, dealing in chicken poo!

Do you rot it down first, or just sell it straight from the chickens bum? Do you have to pick out the bits of straw and sawdust?

[aceface]

he he he, I never would have thought you could make a living, dealing in chicken poo!

Do you rot it down first, or just sell it straight from the chickens bum? Do you have to pick out the bits of straw and sawdust?

they take it as it is ,sieved it is £200 a bag

[Wellington Boot]

Love it.
I'd definitely sieve chicken poo for £200 a bag. Depending on how big the bags are, of course!

[aceface]

they are 20kg bags and it was my pet shop man that suggested it he has an allotment and asked for some ,no probs i said ,just ring me when they have filled 3 sacks he said,i phoned him by lunchtime the same day job well done ,said he

he hjad 3 sacks and then people asked him if they could get some so it caught on from there he then reached an arrangement with me for their feed ,he now gets his poo free and my girls eat for free frugality all round ,it might be worth looking at your local allotments or garden club etc they will take it and you might be able to exchange it for something that benefits you.i also dont ask money for eggs i take exchanges, plants gravel tree stumps the list is endless once you get going people also donate money which i them used for the run and will now donate to the hospice that cared for my dad when he was poorly unless of course the girls need anything them that comes first

[Wellington Boot]

That sounds like a great idea Ace. Even if I could just reduce the price of the weekly shop, it would probably be enough. DH earns enough to pay the bills and the mortgage, I just have to buy food, petrol and childcare with my salary (child care being the main one, but we wouldn't need that if I was working at home).

I think I'll ask around first, and see what happens, before I tell my boss where to stick it, but lots to think about.

Thank you!
Nx

[KathJ]

Hi bettythebass, me and my hubbie dream of doing that all the time. We'd love to give up our jobs and have a smallholding with chickens, pigs and a goat. I'd then have lots more room to rescue some ex-battys and the time to spend with them. All a dream at the moment though The amount our girls have cost us so far it's a very distant dream

[Mo]

I've kept a record of money spent, eggs laid for the 10 years I've been keeping a few hens.
I reckon that including all I've spent on a large secure run the eggs cost over 93p /6. I sell them to friends at £1 /6.
So there's not really much margin. If I'm selling to friends I don't want to charge top, shop prices, and I can't claim 'free range' - at the moment I let them out for an hour or so, but if they were out earlier in the day they'd get into our neighbour's nice garden. I call them Garden Eggs. With only 3 hens there is a scramble when I take spares to dance club, but if I had a lot of hens it might be different, and those weeks I didn't go to club I might build up some 'less fresh' eggs. I know shop eggs can be 3 or more weeks old (compare the air-space and ease of peeling hardboiled fresh eggs with shop eggs) - but I would want to sell fresh.
I've never thought of selling muck, not sure I'd have an outlet where I am.

[Mo]

continued.....
If I were you I'd think very carefully about how much room you want to give to hens, how much work you are prepared for - a quick dash to let 3 hens out and poo-pick in the rain/snow, or a major muck shovelling from a large flock?

Hen keeping can be a joy, but sometimes can have you tearing your hair. If they are slightly crowded you may get a bully. Older hens may lay soft shelled eggs, and that can start them eating the eggs. If you let them out some may start hiding eggs under the hedge. And they may take weeks off to be broody. And eventually egg laying slows or stops but they still cost the same to feed.
If they are pets then eggs are a bonus, you may feel different if you are counting on the cash.

Commercial eggs are produced on the basis that they have to provide a return on the capital spent on their housing and their feed costs. To do this hens lay for a year or so, then are culled. From a cash point of view it costs as much to feed a hen for 6 months as to buy or rear a replacement, so less productive are not given house-room. Would you be hard-nosed enough for this? If not you need to do your costings with this in mind, and not fill your hen run with hens all the same age which will slow down at the same time.

I know Richard started small, went much bigger, then found the snags and now keeps a few, I think. Look at the main site and here

[Tony H]

Due to my heart packing up last year and me loosing my job we found it essential to save as much as possible I have now gone self employed and get working tax credit to top up my income from the chucks, e sell the eggs but I also breed posh girls which sell at £20 each, and we make cakes with the extra eggs and sell them at car boot sales, we also bag up the poop and sell that as well, in no way do I earn what I used to but it covers all the bills and we are so happy in what we do life has become a pleasure, good luck

[Sandra M]

We have 2 houses we rent out so that pays the bills but I sell eating eggs fertile eggs hatch my own chicks and sell them at point of lay and I do chicken boarding. We all so have 4 pigs each year for meat for us and we sell the pork to make ours free and we grow are veg and OH make's and sells craft shape's on ebay this give's us enough money for OH to do his Kart racing and all are spending money we need . It can be hard work when the weather is wet but I would rather the hard days than going to work.

[big al]

Hi

I hatch my own chicks from various breeds of birds (poultry) only just started to sell them i also sell eggs for hatching but this is seasonal so the profit i make will be used for feed through the winter so i just do enough to make it pay for its self. im at collage doing a extended diploma in amimal management and working so if i had more time i would defenatly make money with the hobby but remember it is mainly seasonal with eggs and chicks i suppose you can sell birds late winter early spring as point of lay.

Al