The Best Scoop on Coops

THE BEST SCOOP ON COOPS

And the inhabitants in coops.

I have undertaken to raise enough chickens to keep my family in eggs and this is how it goes. I might add, there were a few unexpected costs along the way. Since I am not a farmer, but a retired school teacher, this unique experience has grown beyond my original expectations, with many pleasant rewards and surprises, as you will see with my chick to eggs raising experience shown below.

First, you buy a half dozen chicks for $1.67 each, not bad so far. Our local farm store loves to see me driving up to the parking lot. To a non-skilled and inexperienced chicken farmer, I think six chickens should give you a half dozen eggs/day to my way of thinking, and in two laying days you should break even for the cost of the six chicks. Well, not so fast. Don’t forget the red brooder lamp to keep them warm for the first three to four weeks depending on the weather. Then there is a feed tray, a water bottle and some chick food, as starters, these might cost around thirty to forty dollars. It is the heat lamp that costs the most and these don’t usually last long enough to use them for a second batch. About the time you get the chicks home, the little cardboard box that the store put them in is filled up with chicken waste, but that’s not too bad, I hear this kind of waste makes excellent fertilizer and it is suggested to throw the cardboard box into the compost too, the rotting fiber mixes well with the waste material. But, that begs another problem because now that we don’t have the cardboard box, we have to buy a cage for the chicks while we make a brooder box. Oh, yes, they will have to have the comforts of home along with that water jar, feed tray, red bulb and a little straw. Oh, did I mention, straw prices have shot up lately. But, have no fear, I had some extra wood from another project, and I was able to make the little brooder box for about twenty-five dollars out of pocket. Ok, you say, the price of that half dozen eggs has just gone up. No, I say, we will amortize this cost over two hundred dozen eggs which will be paid back in four hundred laying days. Drat, I think half of my little chicks might be boys and from what I hear, their eggs don’t count. Oh man, the start up cost may wipe out my profit for the first year.

The small bag of starter feed didn’t last long and when I went back to the place where I bought the chickens, they told me to get a special and larger cage ready because the little darlings would be needing more than a brooder box and also, in a week or two they would want to see the light of day and get a little fresh air. The store manager was even kind enough to sketch out the next cage with legs, door and all. I was able to use some more scrap boards that I salvaged from a shipping crate, but the wire and hinges cost me around fifty dollars, and that wasn’t too bad when you consider the box of air driven staples that I used cost seventeen dollars. Now, the new feed after the starter is a much bigger bag and is something called 20 % and I have no idea what that means, but that is what the store sells for the next stage at about four to five weeks old. On the way out the door, the asst-manager Danny, (that’s a girl) told me that after the cage, I would need to start thinking about an outdoor chicken coop, and a roaming and scratching pen. I told her that I was planning to let them run loose with my geese and she laughed and told me that the first day, what the red tailed hawks didn’t eat some other animal would. Ok, well, that’s not too bad, I will have to make adjustments to my amortization period and extend it a little longer.

I priced the 100 feet of poultry netting, and the eight foot metal “T” posts plus the little wire hangers that hold the fence to the post and it came up to about $150. Wow, I thought, it will take me six-hundred laying days if I was lucky enough to have all hens and 1200 laying days if only half turned out to be hens. When I told that to the asst-manager, she really laughed and told me not to forget that I had to buy food all those days, plus the water jar contraption that I was now using to water the chickens would be too small in about a week and I would need a larger one. The most shocking news was that these fuzzy little critters wouldn’t lay anything but waste for the first twenty-two weeks. So now we have to amortize in non-productive time making the pay back time even longer. I guess you are beginning to ask if raising chickens for fresh eggs is worth the expense and trouble.

By this time I was beginning to give some thought to how farmers ever make a living. Danny gave me a little more very important advice. Number one, don’t ever count your chickens before they hatch and number two, molting chickens don’t lay. Hey, wait a minute, what is this molting thing? She explained that every year, the chickens would molt, they would lose some of their feathers and stop laying eggs for a period of time and if I wanted an accurate forecast, I should add about 20% to my cost for non-production time and don’t forget, chickens eat while molting.

I tried to sell my brooder box and staging cage, but I couldn’t find anyone dumb enough to want to raise chickens. Before it was over, I had to add more wire with a closer weave to the chicken coop because my first wire covering didn’t pass the farmer’s inspection against black snakes and rodents and I also had to add five doors to the coop. Now, that, I will have to explain. The coop is very versatile and there is a ramp door in the front so they can get in and out to the pen and which can be locked at night against prowling animals. There is an end door to put in fresh water each day. At the opposite end there are three long small doors. One on top, to collect the eggs from the upper nests, one in the middle to collect eggs from the lower nests and one bottom door where you can put the feed into a long trough. All of these are strategically placed so that the operator doesn’t have to go inside and disturb the chickens in case one or more might be laying an egg. If you are lucky.

Feed doesn’t last long and after I had the coop finished and also, almost had the perimeter fence in place, I went back to buy two seventy-pound bags of feed. One bag is called chicken mash and one is of cracked corn. Now that is another story, farmers don’t like to grow corn for chicken feed because they can make more money selling corn to make fuel for car engines more environmentally friendly. So, while I was getting this third batch of feed, Danny looked at the picture of my chicken yard pen and laughed. She said it looked good, but I forgot one thing. Where is the hawk netting over the top. My first thought was, “how many more eggs will that take?”

It is only a guess, but I estimate that I have somewhere between six-hundred and eight-hundred dollars in my operation including the watering pans, instruction books, netting, fencing, staples, nails, screws, three telephone poles and ten eight foot “T” posts plus hardware. I am not including driving back and forth, seventy-two hours of labor for building the brooder box, staging pen, coop and putting up the fence. Don’t forget the fifteen minutes each day that it takes to feed and water my little money makers.

My wife and I were sitting in the backyard admiring our flock and handiwork when she said, “Don’t those red things growing on top of their heads mean they are roosters?” Now why did she have to go and say that, I was just about to get over my nervousness by trying to convince myself that I was going to save money.

Apparently, these chickens won’t live long enough to lay enough eggs to pay for the operation so I have planned to get more chickens next year. What do you think?

I might add that my idea to save money was so enticing that my oldest daughter went out and bought a dozen chicks for herself. I have to laugh when I think about how much that is going to cost her. On a positive note, she is younger than I and will probably live long enough to break even.