The results are in. We no longer have any backyard animals, but we do have some hard numbers to share with you about raising goats and chickens. In this video we answer the question: does homesteading save money?
In the past month, we lost 2 chickens to a mysterious predator, and gave our last one away. Blanche had 2 babies, Arthur and Stanley. And we failed to try our hand at gardening this spring. We have plans to fix our mistakes in the fall. But until then…
For myself I calculated that each bird costs about 1.50 per month to feed. I bought 40 chickens and thankfully have only had 3 pass away on me. They have not started laying yet. But I plan to sell the eggs for 3.00 a dozen. To offset the costs I have been selling Automatic Chicken Waterers and have sold 26 buckets since February.
Another thing that will be interesting with the bird flu going around there is going to be less supply of eggs out there. So eggs might be worth more this year, as overall supply is lessened. Chickens can be very little work if you use technology to your advantage. (gravity feeder, auto waterer, roll out laying boxes etc).
PS. would you be interested in selling your automatic door parts?
Hey Brad,
I hadn’t considered bird flu, that’s an excellent point. When we get our next batch of chickens, I want to experiment with a fully automatic chicken tractor. Feeds, waters, opens/closes, and moves around the yard on it’s own (kind of like a roomba). It might be a little too much, but we’ll see in the fall.
As far as the automatic door, unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to test it to feel confident about selling it. We only used it for a few weeks before spring came and the chickens started disappearing. A few people have built it based on the video, we’ll see if they report back good long term results.
could you set up a clothes line and have the tractor suspend below it. then the motor would pull the chicken tractor. or you could make it a circle with dolly track and then a motor would only have to turn on each day for 15 seconds to move the tractor in one direction.
I think I may build one of these chicken tractors – https://foodcyclist.com/stress-free-chicken-tractor-plans/
down the road to help keep the grass down until I get some sheep.
I haven’t myself tried them yet. but I’ve thought about getting electric chicken netting and those predator blinking lights to keep away varmints. Good luck!
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