Having just a couple of chickens

[Alex]

Does anyone know if it makes sense to keep just a couple of chickens for the purpose of saving money by not buying eggs?
How much does it cost to feed them?
How many eggs a months to expect?
We are not sure if we go for it.So will appreciate some advice.

[Royall]

There are several on Punaweb that sell eggs. Personally I'd rather pay 3.50 a doz. for fresh eggs than to keep the noisy things. There is more to it than you think. You can buy mainland eggs for about 3.00 a doz. also. I have in a pinch but they aren't as nice and as fresh as local eggs.

Royall

[Nalu]

I love my chickens. It's a beautiful cycle, I feed them and they give me fertilizer for the garden and eggs. I have 5 rhode island reds, all hens, not noisy at all. They're so gentle and tame. I usually go through about a 50 lb bag every 5-6 weeks, it's 16.99 at Del's. I went a lot longer this time because it's been beautiful and I've been letting them free range and they have cut way down on their feed. When they were new layers I got 4-5 eggs per day. They're now about 2 years old and we're getting about 3 a day. Angela

[Liz]

Our mixed flock of 20 hens go through a 50# bag of feed in about 10 days. That works out about the same as Angela's rhodies. They get lots of other goodies to eat too (scratch wheat, coconuts, yard trimmings, fresh grass, kitchen scraps) and are often let out of their large fenced yard for a few hours in the early evening.

We're currently getting about 70-80% egg production each day. Most of our hens are a little over a year old, and the 4 buffies are closer to 1-1/2 years old. They'll lay fewer eggs as they age. That's normal.

You can expect similar percentages with fewer hens. You also have to factor in the cost of housing, unless you let them run wild, in which case you'll get fewer eggs and have a higher mortality rate due to predators.

We keep only hens because they're far less noisy than the roosters, but that does mean that we don't get new chicks from our girls, so when they go broody they're just taking up space (& eating feed!) until they snap out of it. (They don't lay when they're broody.)

But above all, we keep chickens because it's fun! We love our flock and the fresh eggs we get from them. :-)

You can learn a lot more about chickens at our island chicken group here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hawaiichickens/

aloha, Liz

"The best things in life aren't things."

[Cagary]

Aren't you rather quickly over run by too many eggs (how many can you eat?) or if you have roosters, too many chicks?

[kani-lehua]

liz/mike sell their eggs.

we have 5 rhode island reds and one araucana (spelling). we were getting 5/6 eggs per day, but have currently run into a mongoose thief. down to 4/5 eggs /day. not sure how much feed we're going through. oh, and our girls are noisy. as soon as the sun rises, they want OUT as in pronto. we have given away, sold and bartered eggs. ours are 15 months old. the rhodies can be carried, but not cleopatra, the aracauna.





"a great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

w. james

[Alex]

Thank you,everyone and Nalu in particular for sharing your experience.
Where to buy chickens and possibly small chicken coop locally?