Getting Rich From A Pair Of Chickens

When I was younger, I had talked to an uncle from the province. He said that he used to have a pair of chickens, that’sone male and one female. After some years, his chickens numbered more than a hundred. For a little girl, that story was amusing if not mesmerizing. Just with 2 chickens and you can get rich? The hen hatched 8 chicks which grew up with 5 of them becoming hens after 5 months. What if those 5 would have 8 chicks each, gee, that would be 40 chickens in 5 months. And it is easy to do the rest of the math. When you have a space in the farm, take care of chickens and they will take care of you later.

 

What do you mean with "rich"? I mean, you can probably substain yourself with some chickens but I don't think you would make enough money to actually become rich. That would require enormous quantities of effort, skills, luck but I don't think you would be able to afford a, let's say, an expensive car with chickens. Not rich, but self-sustained.

 

Rich? I don't think so. The chickens would help in you being self-sustainable but that's about it. I don't see the possibility here of you being able to buy a house, an expensive car and sustain an above normal lifestyle from proceeds generated from raising these chickens. You might get some funds from the selling a few at intervals and there could also be proceeds from selling eggs which they have produced but how far can that relly take you?

 

There are chicken "farms" all over the U.S. that process many thousands of chickens a day.
Cheapest meat there is.
"Rich" marketing chickens on your own?
No.

 

Depending if they are fighting chickens one rooster and a hen is $1600

 

$1600.00 is way to much money.
Far less expensive here.

 

I would ammend that to you would not starve if you had a mating pair of chickens. You could always eat. However, I don't think that you would get rich soley from
a couple of chickens alone. I think you would simply be able to not die of starvation. You would also have eggs and since they are a near perfect protein that is great!

 

Fighting chickens is illegal in most U.S. but I'm sure it goes on.
Owning a fighting chicken might not be illegal.
When I was a kid dad kept fighting chicken for someone he knew though dad didn't
engage in the barbaric "sport".

 

This is a clear case of increase, multiply and fill the earth. Beautiful story. My mother had a whole lot of chickens that freely roaming around during the day.
These days there is what is called a battery system We had this where only hens are reared and they lay eggs without the help of the rooster. This is ideal for those who live in flats as well.

 

Chickens live in flats?

When I was a kid we raised chickens and collected eggs.
Farm chickens and eggs are sooooo much better tasting than store bought.

 

You are correct@op depending on the space you have on your farm in 5 years you can have quite a flock of chicken fro just two birds.This made possible by the short incubation period of 21 days, as well as the number of eggs a chicken can incubate per incubation.

I grew up in the rural area where we raised chicken for the fun of it, as well as for the cash.this can be an exiting experience

 

You can grow rich with a pair of chicken (male and female), however, it will take many years. Unless you are rearing genetically modified chickens, local breed chicken will take time to grow up and become mature. When I was a child my parents used to buy chicken for us. each of the sibling would have theri own chicken. When chickens grew up we would sell chickens and make some money. Soetimes we let them multiply instead of selling, but all we had was some money for the party.

 

Well, if you are to do it on a commercial scale with regulated housing, feeds, and veterinary experts to look after their health, then I'll agree. But one or two chickens won't make you rich. You'll be stressed out taking care of them. Take it as a business, invest your capital and get hands to help, you can bank with that.

 

I actually do raise chickens and I can assure you that unless done on a huge scale the best you will ever do is break even. The plus side is, if done correctly, you will have meat and eggs to support about 30% of the nutritional needs for a small group. Chickens require food, water, and labor to raise. Free ranging chickens would be risky in a camp. They are loud birds, that would attract unwanted guests from the animal kingdom, not to mention starving humans.

 

Guinea fowl are a good alternative to chickens in that they roost in trees and don't have to be put up at night to keep them from being eaten. Their eggs and meat are good and if toy have a flock of guineas you will never have to worry about anyone sneaking up on you. They are natural perimeter alarms and raise cane anytime someone or something new approaches. Geese and Peacocks are much the same as well.

Wealth is a very relative term. In a world where food is scarce and hard to come by a person with a hundred chickens is pretty darn wealthy. Along with some sort of fowl pot belly pigs and small goats are great meat animals to have. They are "meal" sized. I hesitate to say it but dogs are also good meat animals and actually a lot nicer to have around than most other livestock. Rabbits are also pretty good if you understand them and ar willing to do the things that seem to be necessary with them. Of ll the critters that I have dealt with the rabbits seemed to be the most delicate. We also raised quail several times.

The advantage of the smaller critters is that you don't have as much investment in them as individuals in feed and labor as you would with larger types and when you butcher you don't have a huge amount of meat that you have to preserve in some way immediately. Another nice thing about smaller critters is they are like money and can be traded alive to others. A cow or adult hog is like a one ounce gold coin and only good for big purchases.

I also have raised guinea pigs. they are meat animals where they come from. We raised them for pets but they fatten up nicely and would make a good meal for 4.

 

This is possibly the most stupid, ill informed thread ever, what you would end up with after only a couple of iterations of breeding off the same rooster to its offspring would be deformed chickens or dead in shell chicks. Without importing a new rooster/cock at least every other year your breeding program would be a failure. It could possibly be achieved if you confined the rooster to the one original hen and used an incubator rather then allow her to brood the eggs but the hen would be a complete mess if she was confined with the cock without any rest.
Even a complete idiot would have to accept that long term inbreeding for any species is a really dumb idea.
I'm guessing what this child's story was about was a tale with the business moral "start small and with care you will succeed"

 

I am a member of a group that sends money to third world children. I have 4 foster kids. you can buy chickens that they will give to families in third world areas . these chickens will lay eggs which the families will sell to support the family. this does work very well , you can also buy goats, pigs allsorts of live stock . i strongly urge those that have a few bucks to look into this as you are saving lives. No they did not eat the chickens. they know what it is to starve .

 

There is a similar program through OXFAM where you can donate livestock or seed to help kickstart a community or family towards self sufficiency.

 

Guess I misread it then Keith, I thought it was about getting rich.

 

Chickens are nasty and a pain to raise. My friends have. My family did. Therefore, I never have.

If you want tons of protein, raise mealworms:

https://thefrugalchicken.com/raise-mealworms-red-wrigglers-crickets-and-save-money-podcast/

Humans can eat them. Chickens can eat them. One can fish with them. Put'm on top of the ground as bait for birds -- nuke the birds with birdshot out a small bore shotgun.

https://groundtoground.org/2013/01/30/how-prepare-eat-mealworms/

https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/best-beginner-chicken-breeds/

http://www.wideopenpets.com/10-most-popular-chicken-breeds-for-beginner-backyard-chicken-owners/

 

When a person is young their definition of "rich" is often a lot different that what an adult sees. I remember when I was young we went to a really nice restaurant with some friends. When we were done they dropped somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars on the table for a tip. OMG I thought that maybe being a waiter might be the road to riches. When your weekly allowance from your parents for chores is 50 cents a week that was a monsterous pile of money!

Even now though my definition of wealth isn't what most would consider being rich. Most people see a big house with expensive cars in the driveway in a very exclusive and expensive part of town and they see wealth. I see debt and usually a family that is struggling to make ends meet. I used to work for these people all the time and was amazed. I was a little like a bartender and women especially would dump their woes on me.

I remember one that had pawned the motor off her husbands little fishing boat to finance a little birthday slumber party for her little girl. While she had a little extra money she wanted me to fi her dishwasher, garbage disposer and clothes dryer. She said that if she didn't spend the money it would be gone by the next day. Their house was about 4000 square feet in an exclusive country club subdivision and her husband drove one of those little BMW sports cars. She was having to go to the washeteria to dry her clothes because clothes lines were not allowed in their fancy subdivision. She admitted to sending her little girl off to school sometimes in dirty clothes because they didn't have money for the driers.

When I first ran into this sort of thing I thought that people like this were just having a temporary hard time but as the years went by I saw that this was just how a lot of these sort of Rich people lived. Million dollar house with blow up furniture in the living room and plastic lawn furniture for a dining room table and chairs. ???

Real wealth is having all you need and some of what you want without being in a constant state of near financial disaster. To a kid that lives in a rural area someone with a hundred chickens could well be considered rich. Also inbreeding is not a bad thing. How do you think that we get all the different types and sizes of dogs from the wolf? The big thing is that you watch your livestock for the little signs that you need to make some changes. In cattle that will be when their horns start growing wrong and chicken will show it in their feathers. A rancher will swap bulls with a neighbor and a chicken farmer will make chicken and dumplings out of his rooster and get a new one from another farmer. Inbreeding can reinforce good traits just as it can also reinforce bad traits.

 

But do Meal worms TASTE like chicken when they are cooked???? I do agree that chickens are pretty nasty critters to have around. They will poop on everything if you don't keep them away. We usually had a dog that was in charge of the chickens and kept them off the porches and out of the yard then in the evening would round them up and put them in their pen and hen house where they were safe from foxes and such. That dog would separate his birds from a mixed flock. That mean little chiwawa took his chickens seriously and would protect them too. He made having them around a lot less annoying.

 

I'm not eating worms anytime soon. Times get bad, out comes the rolling pin and garden hose. Mash they guts out, wash wash wash, grind grin grind, mix with whatever else, and fry. Plenty of pepper, onions/ramps/garlic/whatever. Oh my my, I guess you won't die.

You live in a wet climate, then just put wide planks down into where water drains. Nightcrawlers will breed like mad. Feed'm some cheap dog food bits. Lift them planks and you are ready to go fishin'. Or if you are into worms as is the red red robin ... go for it.

Feed they worms to your chickens. Chickens be happy. Wring Ms. Chicken's neck. Yum yum.

Chickens will attack a weaker chicken's butthole, rip it out, an' use it to string out its bowels. All they other chickens go to pecking-up that doomed chicken's guts. Chickens nasty. Just say'n.

Hogs are way mean. Kill the dickens out them. Hang'em up, bleed'em out. Eat piglets, they very own mamas do. Mama knows best.

 

Wild hogs ARE mean but domestic hogs can be like dogs and make good pets. Pot belly pigs are a great pet animal. We always eat the little roosters as soon as they are big enough to make a mean off them. At one time an Uncle made a deal with a guy that raised and sold laying hens to egg producers. Even though the eggs he hatched were screened to be mostly hens a few roosters showed up in every group. We took them out for him at 6 weeks when their comb appeared and then raised them to frier size in groups of anywhere from 75 to a 100 rosters at a time. We would get together and have a massive rooster killing and preparing for the freezer. They were dirt cheap this way and we shared the meat with the hen farmer. I usually got the job of catching and killing them.

We also had hog killings and butchering every fall after the first frost. We would scrape them then skin them and butcher them. While we were cutting the hog up the women made cracklings and cracklin bread. We smoked our own bacon and hams most years and Often even cleaned the guts for sausage skins or chitlins. The old saying about hogs is that the only thing that goes to waste is the last squeal is a fact.

Chickens are the best for meat but I have to tell you that Indian Runner ducks are better egg producers and a lot less hassle. We've had both and I miss the ducks but don't miss the chickens at all. We sold duck eggs and ate duck eggs and fed them to the dogs and still had more eggs than we could deal with and that was from a dozen ducks and two of them were drakes. Duck eggs are especially good for baking uses because they are a lot richer with more yolk and less white.

 

TexDanm, ducks are raised more often than chickens in a bunch of countries -- especially countries that have lots of standing water, rice paddies and such. Got a work-mate who's from the other side of the planet and they raise ducks to the exclusion of chickens. I like duck meat better than chicken.

 

Indian Runners are actually bred for egg laying. They are small and really cute. Daffy Duck is an indian runner. They stand very uprite and are extremely friendly. Ours were black with a little white neck ring. They are great to put in your garden as pest control.

https://poultrykeeper.com/duck-breeds/indian-runner-ducks/