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Lol, you can buy a full chicken for $5 (10 for $49.99) and they lay between 4-7 eggs a week, you can make an ROI between 1-2 weeks and never have to buy eggs again.
I would strongly recommend you buy chickens if you have the ability.
Unfortunately good feed is more expensive than the chicken.
Also testing for diseases. They could catch the bird flu and you might not know it right away and you end up catching it from them. I'll let the farms deal with testing.
Nice try, Purdue.
Yeah, keeping them alive and healthy is the expensive part.
don't they eat scraps?
Scraps and foraging are a great addition to their diet! But to keep them laying for many years they need a feed that supplements calcium. Making egg shells will leech calcium from their bones and they'll live short lives if they don't have enough in their feed. I like feeding a mash of soy, corn and other vitamins.
To be fair, lots of animals like to kill chickens. I've lost dozens to predators. And I'm committed to free range, I don't want to keep chickens locked in a small coop/run all the time. I still lock them up at night and they appreciate that. I actually have zero at the moment, waiting for spring to start over after some dogs jumped over my fence and killed all of mine. I still get free eggs from my sister though. Oh, and you can't suggest chicken ownership without disclosing all of the chicken shit. It's almost mountains of chicken shit.
Call it Guano and sell it as fertiliser.
People have killed over guano. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano_War
It's also how Bond originally killed Dr No
Bond kills No by taking over the guano-loading machine at the docks and diverting the flow of guano to bury him alive.
Re-he-he-eally
Bumblebee tuna!
What are your thoughts on suburban chicken ownership? I'm wholly uninterested, I need another creature to keep alive like I need another hole in the head, but my wife and daughter are really into the idea.
That's essentially what I have been doing. You'd be surprised how many predators still roam the suburbs though. I have lost chickens to raccoons, opossums, hawks, dogs and foxes.
My only real suggestion is check your zoning. I was operating in a kind of grey area but I have known people who had to get rid of their chickens to avoid daily fines. Getting well set up for chickens is a bit of work, I wouldn't want to do that in vain.
I had 7 and am down to 2 because of a coyote.
We wanted chickens so badly this year but with H5N1 spreading and owning 3 cats (which seem to have a high death rate from H5N1) I'm still not sure if it's a great idea. If anyone can convince me though I would still happily get chickens.