I was looking at building a chicken coop and getting some chickens to help off set the costs of feeding my family. Anyone have any luck with this effort? Will it help offset costs or just create a new can of worms for me. I think its a good skill to learn how to support as much of your family food intake as you can.

I have none but have been on the same train of thought as you, VJ. For the same reasons!

I am also considering quail as well. And they are damn good eating too!

I have--and things would have to be pretty desperate before I do it again. But, that's just me. A lot of other folks have had quite a bit of success with them.

Above all, don't try to crowd your chickens. Big chicken processors will allot two square feet of coop space per chicken, but you will be far better off by allowing six or eight square feet per chicken. There will certainly be a higher initial cost, but maintaining cleanliness and keeping the birds healthy will be a lot easier.

If you have a dog, don't feed the dog chicken. He will soon see your chickens as his--at your expense. then, you will have a tough choice; get rid of a family pet, or get rid of the chickens.

And, ask yourself if you really have the temperament for this enterprise. No one enjoys butchering chickens, but those who put off this task soon have a flock that increasingly becomes large, unhealthy, and unmanageable.

Hope this helps.

Onward and upward,
airforce

My father was telling me his parents never paid a nickel for meat at a market. They had hogs and chickens and would hunt rabbit, dove, quail and deer year round and that was it. I think if I pick up 12 chickens and two roosters and just give them what they need to make it in the winter ect.. I would be set. I am starting to look at some info on the internet.

I think "Surviving Doomsday" by Boston T. Party has great info for the layperson on this subject.

It's a Y2K book and therefore might be found cheaply in a used book store.

Here there is two ways to do it. One is called free range chickens, That's basically letting them go after they are fairly grown, To roam your land and eat the bugs and grass. I have a friend that does this with chickens and geese to protect the chickens. If you ever been around geese their good watch dogs for other animals. He has 20 at least. It works well for him. Before I had fencing up on my land I started raising chickens. I didn't choose free range method for worries of dogs and coyote's. I built a 8'x 12' coop with roost and laying baskets. I have 13 and one Rooster. If your looking for a book that will show you how to raise many thing animal and vegetable. I would suggest "Storey's Basic country skills" a book on practical self reliance. Should be available at any larger book store. It will cost you about 25 dollars. If you have any questions that I can help you with feel free to PM me.

I have from 20 to 30 laying hens at present.

Haven't killed off a flock for meat in over 4 years. I just trade/sell off the laying hens at about $10 a piece rather than kill them for meat. In other words they are worth MUCH more alive than served for dinner.

Airforce is right, chickens are smellier and messier to do than rabbits, fingers will stink for a while.... but rabbits don't lay eggs! Last time I killed off 19 birds I 'chickened out' and brought them to a processing plant. For $2 a bird they were killed, gutted, plucked, washed, and bagged by some ladies speaking Russian. Can't beat that.

The way I have the coop and turn-out yard set up, the chickens are free to roam and extremely well protected from attack. I have NEVER in 7 years lost a bird to a predator. All we have to do is feed them, water them, and open and close the door once a day. Takes about 5 minutes. On Saturday we clean out the coop's poop collection tray and change out the pine shavings on the floor. Takes less than an hour.

We get 15 to 20 eggs a day which we sell for $2.00 a dozen that pays for their food and bedding, and allows us to get new chicks every year. So basically we get all the eggs a family of 7 can possibly eat, and a little cash.

I could get more birds and possibly make money at this, but that will have to wait till the kids are ready to assume responsibility for the job. I have better things to do... like post on militia sites.

I built a modern 'scientific' 8x12 coop, of an Amish design, with secure 50x50 turn out pen, for about $1200 retail. A predator would need a crow-bar to get into it.

I will never build a fixed coop again as the birds quickly kill all the grass in their pen, and digging a trench to bury the fence wire is ALOT of work. From now on all coops will be on wheels like a wagon, with a turnout pen made of folding fence panels. I will move the coop every three days to fresh grass. I have plenty of land for this.

It's too late to get birds now from my source. McMurray will start again Feb. 15th.

I will get maybe 20 meat birds then, and keep then separate from the hens.

As to birds, I've tried about 10 different breeds. Silver Leghorns work the best for us here in Georgia, and believe it or not, Rhode Island Reds work well for us. For a heavy breed, they sucked up this summers heat very well. I want polite, quiet, affordable, and productive hens.

We do use a small incubator sometimes and hatch our own chicks. It's fun, but messes up the house, so we don't do it much.

Any questions, feel free.

Pilgrim, I keep my incubator in one of the out buildings, It's solar heated and has electricity for the incubator. I keep them there until I can release them into the chick yard. building is easy to clean with concrete floors and 4' of the walls being block to hold heat.

Greywolf, I don't have an 'acceptable' out building... yet...

Wish I did.

I am able to set up a brooder inside the coop that will hold about 20 or so chicks. I wait till the chicks are 2 weeks old to put them outside. We use a heat light, but don't have to run it as much as some places it is so dang hot around here. When I lived up north we had to wait 2 months to put them outside! The sun-room we kept them in was a disaster area by then. Dang chicken dust was everywhere. The small plastic kiddie pools we used for brooders held all the poop and spilled water, but the dust was another story.

I used to live on a chicken farm a long time ago. 20 birds is easy compared to 20,000.

My wife likes chickens. So we will have chickens. Hey I ain't complaining, cause I like eggs.

I like rabbits better...and despite the lack of eggs, you get better meat production from them.

And the poop makes better fertilizer.

i had a feeling it was going to be some work. I like the idea of rabbits also. If you have some tips on rabbit production lets hear them as well. I am looking to collect as much info as I can from people who know what they are talking about.

http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/lib2/rabbits.htm

I think I like the idea of rabbit farming over chicken farming. The idea of the fur being a bonus to the production of rabbits for food is a great idea. Not to get down to the cave man level but fur has lots of uses around the house and could be worth something to other people.

They can certainly be tanned and used at home, but there is basically no market for rabbit furs at this time. Commercial farms provide the pelts the market demands, and at a price that hardly justifies the effort. If you want to sell any, you'll have to develop your market locally.

Onward and upward,
airforce

OK, I don't just have chickens, I have a rabbit hutch and pigs and a milk cow and raise calves for slaughter, Of course horses, hope I never have to eat them. plus garden and orchard. Gentlemen, you can't just rely on one form of food to get by. Birds could catch something and all be destroyed, same with any animal. Always have back up systems. I raise these different animals and gardens for variety, and because if you live on just one kind of food . You will get sick. Rabbits for instance are very lean and will not supply you with the fat you need to survive over the long run. You must have a source of the fat that it lacks. They call that rabbit starvation. So if you are intending on eating rabbit, eat the bone marrow for extra nutrition.

But I would suggest that you make a well rounded farm with many different forms of food. If you live in the city check local laws and see if you can raise farm animals such as chickens. It might be worth your while to sell your city place for a country one.

I have raised both chickens and rabbits. I found that all in all, I did not care for raising meat rabbits but continue to raise chickens for both eggs and meat.

At this time I have about a dozen laying hens in an 8X8 coop. They are a mixture of Sexlinks and Barred rocks with one rooster who is a combination of multiple varieties that came about from some experments in cross breeding a few years ago.

I raised ten meat birds through the summer and they are in the freezer.

With rabbits, I found they were more time consuming and expensive to feed. They have basically zero resistance to infection. I also found I tired of rabbit meat very quickly but don't mind eating chicken regularly and then of course there are the eggs which I enjoy every day.

I'm not sure if you particularly always save alot of money growing your own meat etc. but at least you know where it came from and that it was raised as natural as possible. Then there is the pride of knowing you did it yourself and the security of becoming self sufficient.

Greywolf is right. Move to the country if you haven't already and raise a variety of animals and grow a big garden. Anything you have to to get out of this Godless rat race they have built for us!

http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/

I found this website. This is what I want to setup for my family. They have some good information on this site.

You can fill a frezzer with rabbit very fast and cook them in so many ways. their poop is the best for your garden because it won't burn anything and if you fish there will allways be worms. You don't need many. I had about 6 does and 1 or 2 bucks and had more rabbits than I could eat. Slingshot

Everything Pilgrim said up there about that pen on wheels is right on. Fresh grass, or even some sprouted in the house during winter is vital.

If you feed on the ground or free range you need to worm them. It will knock off the production a little, but long term it is better for the bird and the eggs.

I haven't had fowl for a while now, but when I did, I has lots of them. I'll never forget all I learned from that little hobby. It has the snowball effect if you are breeding for more than replacements.

Out here, it never gets cold enough to kill off many of the diseases like it does in the south or up north. That shouldn't be a problem unless you get pretty big on it, then you will need to do your own innoculations--especially against New Castle.

Hope this helps on the chickens. I don't do rabbits, but I do like to eat them.

Cordially

CDJ

Penning up your gardens in 10 by 20 foot cages and letting 2 or 3 chickens go inside everyday until harvest season goes a long way toward keeping out pests as large as mice.

Another good food source for those with the right piece of land is a small pond of catfish or bullhead.

You only need around 4' of water and can harvest with a friend and a net once a year.Alot of bang for the buck after the initial expence of digging the pond.Leave some good tall grass about a foot thick all the way around and there will be more than enough insects to keep bullhead happy and fat.

Good place to dump those chicken guts and small game leftovers to.