RE: Mr. Smith breaks into urban agribusiness (and he may have to go to Washington).
November 13, 2012 at 7:28 pm
(This post was last modified: November 13, 2012 at 7:36 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
You have kids right? LOL< try geese. I had a ton of chickens and geese growing up. The chickens -can be- very loud and annoying...it ain't just the roosters than have a "cackle at the sun" habit...and it ain't just the sun they cackle at..lol. The geese are quieter, the eggs are bigger (hell you can even train them to eat specific types of weeds!). You don't get as many tho....
Chickens will eat damned near anything, soak some feed corn in a 5 gallon bucket of water and they go apeshit. I don't know about that whole cleaning out the pen business, build a tractor style coop (notice the wheels in the rear and handle to the front on the one in the image) and just move it around (doesn't have to have a "bottom"). Free pest control, light cultivation and aeration of the turf....they graze on weed seeds and such. If you leave em in one place too long the ground gets burnt. They'll lay eggs in just about anything as well, hay is nice....bunched up pillowcases and little bowls dug in the ground end up with eggs in them too. You know, funny thing about the chickens I kept, they'd just keep laying eggs in the same nests (plenty of them would share the same nest) and even though I kept taking them they'd rarely lay them elsewhere. Hell, we never really kept the coops closed either unless some dogs were moving through the prairie but they didn't go anywhere anyway. We'd buy a box of chicks every so often and get em nice and fat, eat the eggs, and eventually the chickens (I prefer Purdue...honestly). They were really easy to keep. They do fine in cold weather, just give em a place to get out of the snow and wind.
Now, is it economical? No..lol, probably not. You can figure that out for yourself though. Check the feed cost, adjusted for the amount of chickens you plan to keep and the average yield of eggs from that number of chickens (check your ag extension for this info) - essentially you're looking to get an average price per egg....multiply that by twelve and compare that number to the price you pay at the store. Once you've done that....remember that you are likely to get fewer eggs than average and you haven't put a price on the time you spend caring for the damned chickens (not that it has to be alot of time..mind you..but it's something). There are some ways you can jerry with those numbers (I was raised in Florida...plenty of bugs for feed..we let them roam in the woods..we fed them cheap ass dried corn and table scraps). Ultimately, if you're thinking of keeping a few chickens for eggs..and you want to sell it to the hubby as economical..you may have to invoke the steep cost of wifey's contentedness as part of the equation.
(Is my wife seriously the only one that constantly reminds her husband of this? She's never pitched anything to me strictly by the numbers...lol)
Chickens will eat damned near anything, soak some feed corn in a 5 gallon bucket of water and they go apeshit. I don't know about that whole cleaning out the pen business, build a tractor style coop (notice the wheels in the rear and handle to the front on the one in the image) and just move it around (doesn't have to have a "bottom"). Free pest control, light cultivation and aeration of the turf....they graze on weed seeds and such. If you leave em in one place too long the ground gets burnt. They'll lay eggs in just about anything as well, hay is nice....bunched up pillowcases and little bowls dug in the ground end up with eggs in them too. You know, funny thing about the chickens I kept, they'd just keep laying eggs in the same nests (plenty of them would share the same nest) and even though I kept taking them they'd rarely lay them elsewhere. Hell, we never really kept the coops closed either unless some dogs were moving through the prairie but they didn't go anywhere anyway. We'd buy a box of chicks every so often and get em nice and fat, eat the eggs, and eventually the chickens (I prefer Purdue...honestly). They were really easy to keep. They do fine in cold weather, just give em a place to get out of the snow and wind.
Now, is it economical? No..lol, probably not. You can figure that out for yourself though. Check the feed cost, adjusted for the amount of chickens you plan to keep and the average yield of eggs from that number of chickens (check your ag extension for this info) - essentially you're looking to get an average price per egg....multiply that by twelve and compare that number to the price you pay at the store. Once you've done that....remember that you are likely to get fewer eggs than average and you haven't put a price on the time you spend caring for the damned chickens (not that it has to be alot of time..mind you..but it's something). There are some ways you can jerry with those numbers (I was raised in Florida...plenty of bugs for feed..we let them roam in the woods..we fed them cheap ass dried corn and table scraps). Ultimately, if you're thinking of keeping a few chickens for eggs..and you want to sell it to the hubby as economical..you may have to invoke the steep cost of wifey's contentedness as part of the equation.
(Is my wife seriously the only one that constantly reminds her husband of this? She's never pitched anything to me strictly by the numbers...lol)
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
