How much land does it take to feed a person for a year?

[patandchickens]

Depends how much eggs you wanna eat, and how much meat.

If you want to eat, say, two eggs a day most days of the year (less perhaps in winter), you'd want 2-5 chickens depending on breed. (Plus probably stew them once their laying started to decrease, unless you want to be feeding 'retirees')

Meat, well, how much meat do you want to eat.



Chickens are really a MUCH more efficient source of eggs than meat, IMO.

Pat

 

[freemotion]

I would go with a bit higher number of hens, and you'll need a roo or two. If you need to produce your own chicks, you will need heritage breeds, which lay fewer eggs per hen in general. And a broody hen is not producing eggs.....and you will want to store some eggs for the molting months and possibly during winter when production slows, if you are in a colder climate. Also to be ready for the unexpected loss of a hen now and then.

Then you could eat the older hens and all the cockerals, saving a couple fresh ones to fertilize the eggs.

A chicken per week for two people would probably be plenty, along with eggs and another source of meat. Maybe two per week if you are working hard in labor-intensive activities.

That would be eating legs on Monday, wings and neck and organs on Tuesday, breast meat on Wednesday, soup, stew, or casserolle on Thursday, omelets with goat cheese on Friday, trade some eggs with a neighbor for some meat for Saturday and Sunday, and that is one chicken a week for two people!

 

[patandchickens]

If you need to produce your own chicks, you will need heritage breeds, which lay fewer eggs per hen in general. And a broody hen is not producing eggs.....

I dunno, there are lots of fairly good-laying heritage breeds, or you can 'roll your own' sexlinks from two good-laying breeds.

The broody/hatching thing, if a person has enough land to have a rooster and a good number of chickens, just requires you to have *something* broody, not that your whole flock has to be that sort of breed. So as long as you don't mind 'carrying' a few inclined-to-broodiness hens, the rest of your flock can *never* go broody in their life and you will still be able to hatch chicks


Pat

 

[freemotion]

Thanks for clarifying that, Pat, imagine if they all sat on eggs at once, we would be overrun with chicks! What a picture that puts in my head! (It's kinda cute!)

I should also have said dual-purpose breeds. Although I am going more by what I've read, as dh firmly forbids chicken killing here. I've eaten my father's chickens, and they are not as meaty as what I am used to in the store with the Cornish x's. He has Buffs and Wyandottes.

 

[me&thegals]

You could raise meat birds in a tiny space for about 2 months, grazing, inside or a combination. I think I've heard of Joel Salatin doing about 100 birds in a 10'x10' space. Going to try it next fall. Or, you could get straight runs of heritage birds. If you get dual-purpose breeds, the roos could be saved for meat (like Wyandottes, Australorps) and the hens for laying. They might not lay as consistently as some of the newer hybrids, but they definitely go broody for hatching chicks and are great foragers. Our family has about 95-100, including 5 roos, and that provides enough eggs per week for about 25 families (average 1 dozen each) and enough meat (from the culled dual-purpose roos) for our family to have chicken as often as we care to--this year about 1 every other week.

 

[Tallman]

At the present, I have 15 Silver Laced Wyandottes. Getting your feedback is great because I want to boost up the little flock. I'm not sure that the Wyandottes will get broody so I am considering adding a few Sussex. I'll have to pick up a rooster someplace because something got into the hen house, and of all things, I lost Mr. Wonderful.

 

[patandchickens]

Thanks for clarifying that, Pat, imagine if they all sat on eggs at once, we would be overrun with chicks! What a picture that puts in my head! (It's kinda cute!)

Harvey Ussery (sp?) advocates keeping a few OEG hens as broodies; other people keep a few silkies or cochins for that purpose. Then you can have whatever not-necessarily-going-broody main breed you want

(I'm thinking about doing this. But will probably dither for a year or two about what breed broodies I want )


Pat

 

[miss_thenorth]

I will wait to see if my barred rocks go broody. If they dont, I will look for a broody too (I got rid of my OEGs). If I had to choose, though, between OEGs and silkies, I think I would lean more to the OEGs, since they can be aggressive. My reasoning being if you had standards and wanted just one or two broodies, I think the standards would bully the silkies, whereas the OEGs can hold their own against a standard size chicken. Silkies IMO are too passive, plus the set way too often, whereas my OEGs would set two or three times a year.

 

[me&thegals]

At the present, I have 15 Silver Laced Wyandottes. Getting your feedback is great because I want to boost up the little flock. I'm not sure that the Wyandottes will get broody so I am considering adding a few Sussex. I'll have to pick up a rooster someplace because something got into the hen house, and of all things, I lost Mr. Wonderful.

I haven't had any Wyandottes go broody yet. The newest (May) Australorps have, the Buff Orpingtons seem to at the drop of a hat and the Barred Rocks, too. The Wyandottes are supposed to. Will have to wait and see.

 

[Beekissed]

I have one of my new White Rocks (8 mo.) going broody right now. I included Buff Orpingtons in my chick buy in the hopes that one of them would go broody. I plan to hatch my own replacement hens from now on. I really don't care about losing the pure breed strains at this point. I have a RIR roo for egg laying traits, a big, Blue Orp roo for meat production traits, and a Partridge Rock roo for both reasons! Plus he is just soooo darn pretty!

I intentially got dual-purpose breeds for the eating factor. I tried to get some heritage breeds like New Hamps and Doms for the broodiness and hardiness factor. They are all meaty and pretty decent egg layers. I would say if a person would cull these fat gals for egg-laying and hardiness traits, you could develop a great flock of dependable egg and meat producers.

I've eaten the Cornish X and I've eaten the roos from my dual purpose flock and, for flavor, the dual purpose boys win hands down!

For longterm sustainability, you can't go wrong with a good dual purpose flock.