Caelon wrote:
A commercial operator buys their feed in 10 to 20 tonne lots. The hobbyist by the bag, which is a lot more per kg of feed. A broiler chicken in the store takes about 2.7 kg of feed per kg of gain in weight. They hobbyist is lucky if he keeps it under double that rate. A commercial layer operation produces 21 dozen eggs per hen housed on day 1 of the laying cycle. The hobbyist might get half. Nutrition and lighting cycles are important for layers and if you do not control the lighting properly you can stop the whole laying cycle.
Ohh and the cost of buying chicks in small lots of under 1000 is higher and when you get down to lots of a dozen it can be 4 times higher than the commercial oepreation.
I see. You're obviously up to speed with regards to egg farming.
We always had about a dozen hens growing up, but they just had an old wood granery with roosts and the run of the country. Nothing high tech.
In your price comparison, it doesn't sound like your talking free range eggs with the "controlled lighting cycles?"
There is also the garauntee that you'll be eating free range eggs, the lableing in Canada is apparently not so good.
Does anybody know if a couple of chickens would solve my grub problem? Can't seem to get rid of them.
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