Hey friend!

Raising chickens is a great way to source your food (very) locally. Whether you’re doing it to provide meat or eggs for your family – or both – there’s nothing like being able to harvest some high-quality protein from your own backyard.

But is raising chickens cost effective? It really depends. 

Here are 5 ways that we’ve kept our costs low when raising chickens.

1. Build your own DIY feeder. Feed is usually the highest cost. Many chicken owners find that using a pelleted feed can help reduce waste compared to a mash. We went a different route and built our own DIY feeder that virtually eliminates waste. It cost us about $25 and 15 minutes to make. You can find the instructions here! (If you’re interested in building your own gravity waterer, too, here’s how we made ours.)

2. Buy chicks locally and in bulk. Poultry farms generally give discounts when you buy larger batches of birds. If possible, order with a friend to get a lower price per bird. In addition, if you’re ordering online, see if you can find a farm in your state or a neighboring state. Closer chicks means less time in a shipping box, which we’ve found can significantly reduce early losses.

3. Buy a used coop (or build one!). You don’t have to have a fancy coop! You can often find great deals by shopping around on Facebook Marketplace. Sometimes coops that need a bit of work are even listed for free. If you don’t have a way to transport it, ask the seller if they’d be willing to deliver for $20 more. (They often will, happily!) 

For our meat chickens, we built a moveable coop for about half of what it would have cost us to buy one. (Here’s why we love it!)

You can always upgrade and sell your old coop later.

4. Keep raccoons away! In our worst raccoon year, we lost over 40 chicks and caught 9 raccoons and 1 opossum. These little chicken thieves definitely know how to dump a whole bunch of your chicken money down the drain. (Here’s the full story – complete with trail cam pics of how these little rascals did it.)

To avoid this type of fate for your birds, ensure that you have secure, intricate locks, keep your birds safely inside the coop at night, use hardware cloth instead of chicken wire, and keep feed in tight containers.

5. Choose a productive breed. If your main goal is to save money, skip the fancy birds and go straight for the most productive breeds. For egg layers, consider Isa Browns or Rhode Island Reds. For meat birds, we’ve found Cornish Crosses to be the most cost-effective. Here’s a list of some of the most productive laying breeds, including other factors that affect production. And here are 6 ways we keep our meat cost low when raising broilers. (Curious about the overall price of raising meat chickens? Here’s our price breakdown per bird!)

There you have it! We don’t raise chickens only to save money, but keeping costs low sure doesn’t hurt. 

What other ways have you found you can save money raising birds? Reply and let us know!

Happy chicken raising!

-Marissa