It’s not easy raising chickens for meat.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 23 Oct 2012, 19:49

Time spent on the allotment is fees saved at the fitness club.

hardworkinghippy · Post by **hardworkinghippy** » 23 Oct 2012, 20:11

Lovely coop Mad Cyclist !

If food growing is done outside normal work hours, what activities does it replace? Gaining £200 worth of food may also save thousands in drinking, smoking, travelling, home entertainment, gadgets etc.

Absolutely John - and keeping chickens keeps you entertained for hours !

In the long-term it's well worth keeping chickens IMHO but they do a lot more than produce eggs and meat for the freezer.

We grow their food which costs (For the moment) about £65 in diesel and four days in time - plus a bit of worrying time. The cereals are also for the sheep, goats, geese, turkeys and pigs (And wild boar.

) and we've enough left over to swap for other crops.

The chickens free range in my garden, the forest garden and all round the house and we let them in the fields when the grazers have moved to eat ticks and other pests.

They clean our sheep and goats at shearing time.

They spread the manure all down the paths and keep them clear of weeds.

They clean out other animal sheds and make great potting compost in just a few weeks, do a fantastic job weeding around plants and help prepare seeds beds.

They eat slugs and snails eggs and a few snakes. They spread fertiliser as they go and when we empty the shed we put the litter straight on to the blackcurrants and comfrey and the goodness gets spread gradually over the other soft fruit and fruit trees.

The eggs are beautiful and although it's illegal to sell them, (So we don't of course.) we know people who can make £60 a month while the birds are in lay. We've 50 birds a year for the freezer and we also sell a few nice hens and swop cockerels with neighbours.

In an integrated system chickens are invaluable and it's well worth raising a few to see how you get on then you can start thinking of other ways of using their scratching and cleaning habits.

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 23 Oct 2012, 20:18

That's exactly how I want to raise chickens. Do you think that if I rigged up some flower pots on sticks to dispense a few crumbs when they are chicks they would learn to tap them to knock earwigs and bugs out of them later on in the garden ?

hardworkinghippy · Post by **hardworkinghippy** » 23 Oct 2012, 20:42

That's exactly what I do - well, did. The mother hens teach the chicks once they're big enough, now all the chickens tap the pots automatically.

the mad cyclist · Post by **the mad cyclist** » 23 Oct 2012, 20:53

hardworkinghippy wrote:
Absolutely John - and keeping chickens keeps you entertained for hours !

And they entertain the dog.

Tarrel · Post by **Tarrel** » 23 Oct 2012, 21:03

stevecook172001 wrote:
clv101 wrote:Our allotment (30x8m with polytunnel) costs £32 a year, we spend maybe another £20 on seeds/consumables and we mitigate £2-300 of food purchase from it.
£32 plus £20 equals £52. If we split the difference between £200 and £300 to £250, then £250 minus £52 equals £198.

The national minimum wage is £6.19 per hour. Assuming roughly 25% tax and insurance combined, this comes to £4.64 per hour. £198 divided by £4.64 equals 42 hours. If we divide 42 hours by 52 weeks, this comes to approximately 48 minutes per week.

Do you and/or your allotment co-workers spend more or less than 48 minutes per week in total on your allotment in order to produce your annual saving in food expenditure of £198?

I should say, the above analysis and consequent question do not include the start-up cost of your poly-tunnel.

The thing is, the above analysis, accurate as it is, is based on the current paradigm, in that everything is monetised. The appraisal of the effort and time put in also assumes, I imagine, that the alternative would be to pop down to Tescos and pick up a prepared chicken.

But surely keeping chickens, growing produce, etc, is preparing us for a new paradigm in which food security is much less certain, supplies unreliable and prices volatile (or, in a total TEOTWAWKI situation, reversion to a highly localised, community-based trading system, or self-sufficient homesteading). Against THIS background, I'd suggest the effort put in to learn the skills and establish a viable plot / coop/ whatever, is well worth while.

(Don't worry; I was harbouring exactly the same doubts today after spending two solid days processing firewood!)

Post by **clv101** » 23 Oct 2012, 21:17

stevecook172001 wrote:For the vast majority of working people who are already putting in a large number of hours on the back of two earners in one household just to keep their heads afloat and who have little enough spare time as it is to rest, putting in an extra hour's overtime per week beats spending several hours per week on an allotment.

This is backwards thinking. That hour on the allotment per week is a positive! Some people watch TV, some play computer games, some golf and some people garden. Allotment gardening is no more 'work' than a round of golf is!

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 23 Oct 2012, 21:20

clv101 wrote:Allotment gardening is no more 'work' than a round of golf is!

You'd have to pay me to play golf, although I'd soon be sacked for incompetence

.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 23 Oct 2012, 21:39

Beautiful garden photos guys. We raised some meat birds once to acquire the skill and experience. Started with fifty day old chicks and harvested 35 or so on the day we rented the motorised chicken plucker. I did the slaughter and the ladies did the drawing and packing. A long hard days work not enjoyed by anyone. It was worth it for the skill but I won't do it again as long as everyone is working outside at good wages. The coop will be there for a few years at least ready if needed. And no you don't save any money at present prices but the skill might well become priceless.

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 23 Oct 2012, 22:11

Watch Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls "Chicken Out" videos, then you'll feel a lot happier about how much your free-ranged chickens cost you.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 23 Oct 2012, 22:17

Firstly, a lot of the chicken costs in the OP were one-off setting-up type costs (e.g. driving to get materials).

And secondly, the allotment work is not a "disutility" in the same way that paid work is. At least not for me

Given that I have no income whatsoever, and very little chance of getting a job (min wage or otherwise), there's also no real "opportunity cost".

Our plot has suffered a bit of a distaster this week: someone lit a BBQ in the shed and let it burn down. A nearby resident even called the fire brigade! Luckily we didn't keep much in there, and we live near enough not to really need a shed, so from now on we're just going to do without. It'll be a nuicence in showery weather or when, erm, nature calls, but the shed was a bit of a magnet for people who generally didn't do the plot any good.

Looking on the bright side, we now have a lovely raised bed, and lots and lots of biochar to spread about! That's going to be tomorrow's "work". Unless it rains, in which case I shall be straining the rosehip wine into its fermenter.

hardworkinghippy · Post by **hardworkinghippy** » 23 Oct 2012, 22:24

Hic....

ujoni08 · Post by **ujoni08** » 24 Oct 2012, 20:23

@Hardworkinghippy... I love your photos!

hardworkinghippy · Post by **hardworkinghippy** » 24 Oct 2012, 21:25

Ujoni08, thanks.

There are loads more where they came from....

I've learned so much from the internet so I always try to take photos when we're doing something to stick them on the 'net for people.

Blue Peter · Post by **Blue Peter** » 25 Oct 2012, 09:43

hardworkinghippy wrote:They clean out other animal sheds and make great potting compost in just a few weeks, do a fantastic job weeding around plants and help prepare seeds beds.

How do they know which are the weeds and which are the plants?

Peter.