A six pack of chicks
I've done the math (hey, I crunch numbers for a living) and we'll need to collect roughly eleventy-million eggs for the cost of the chicks, feeder, water-er, food, bedding, coop materials, etc... to actually make owning these little ladies cost effective.
Surprise! You are not cost effective!
By my math, it's going to take about 5,000 "normal" (i.e. not organic, cage-free, farm-fresh, but the mass-produced kind) eggs to offset all of our start-up costs. If we get 3 eggs a day on average, that's about 4.5 years worth of eggs. Of course, I don't think these gals are going to lay for that long. But that's not really what it's about.
So, what is it about, for us? It's part self-sufficiency. Granted, a few eggs a day is a long way from being self-sufficient, but it's a start. If we keep doing little things, they're bound to add up, eventually. It's part about having a little more control about what we eat - we've never been too concerned about it in the past, but we're trying to make better decisions with respect to what we're eating these days. And, when you get right down to it, it's part entertainment.
Required reading for all our animals.
And, most of all, so far the chicks are fun. Fun to watch and fun to raise. When they're full-grown hens, they'll be productive and, from everything I've read, they'll only become more entertaining. They've been a ton of work, too, of course (building the coop - pictures in a later post - and getting everything else together), but it's been fun, satisfying work. There is definitely something to be said about the fulfillment that comes from working your land and raising (even very small amounts) of livestock.
Playing with our food.
That's where I'll leave it for now. Much more to come on all of our chicken-y goodness.
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