"You need chickens on your farm...It will be so much fun and think of all the free eggs!"
This is me having a conversation with myself, after I decided that paying $6.00 a dozen for organic free range eggs was a deal. Too bad I didn't take my own advice. I'm learning it will cost me an arm, a drumstick and then some to literally start from chicken scratch.
According to my calculations, I will break even sometime in the year 2053. My mortgage doesn't have that longevity and I may not either.
It will cost you to bring chickens to your farm if you want to raise them organically, protect them from varmints and keep them alive for as long as possible.
We started with chicks so that they would always be sweet around every two- and four-legged creature. (Visions of Tippi Hedren with her eyes plucked out gives me nightmares.)
One of the chicks fooled us all and grew into a beautiful Bielefelder rooster who we named, Frenchie. The other 5 hens are identical Rhode Island Reds that squawk in unison every time I step outside. The are constantly lined up at the door to their covered cage just waiting for a treat of fresh kale or cabbage and are as spoiled rotten as they could be. We even built a roving chicken tractor completely enclosed so they can free range in absolute safety. In exchange for the royal treatment, they lay 5 beautiful brown eggs every day.
Will it all be worth it? Maybe not, but Le Farm would seem incomplete without our 5 French hens, a feisty rooster and the joy of a farm fresh egg every day. I'm definitely spoiled.
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