Cost Of Owning Chickens | Complete Budget Breakdown

This cost of owning chickens breakdown is only based on our experience — we’re not experts, so we always recommend consulting with the pros for the best advice! This post contains affiliate links which may lead to a commission if purchased. This comes at no extra cost to you. Thanks!

What Is The True Cost Of Owning Chickens?

If you’re considering diving into the world of backyard chickens, you may be wondering if it’s really worth the money to get started. After all, with eggs as cheap as $1 a dozen at the grocery store, is the cost of owning chickens really worth the reward? We’re going to break it all down for you below.

How The Cost Of Owning Chickens Was Calculated

Of course, the cost of owning chickens will vary greatly depending in many factors, such as the following.

Factors Which Affect The Cost Of Owning Chickens

• Number of chickens
• Poultry age at purchase
• Coop choice
• Chicken keeping technique, such as…
  • Stationary coop
  • Chicken tractor
  • Deep litter method
  • Large-scale farming operation
• Risk of predators
• Breed choice
• Climate

Though there are many factors that affect the cost of owning chickens, I tried to average everything out for a “common” backyard chickens scenario. For this cost of owning chickens calculation, I chose the following factors.

Mock Backyard Chicken Scenario

• Population: 10 pullets
• Purchased as chicks from local feed store
• Backyard poultry location
• Average chicken care (not excessively spoiled girls!)
• Deep litter bedding
• Wisconsin climate: hot summers, deep freezing winters
• Daily time to free range
• Plenty of kitchen scraps

This is similar to the scenario that we use, except that we have a few more chickens. (We have 17 pullets, at the moment!) Generally speaking, the more chickens that one has, the “cheaper” the cost will be per chicken. For example, a flock of 4 chickens will generally be more expensive per chicken for the first year than a flock of 20. This is because the one-time expenses will be similar for most backyard flocks, whether one has 4 chickens or 20.

Some of our expenses are a bit high, due to the fact that we live in a climate that gets below freezing during the winter. For those in tropical climates, expenses may be significantly less due to the ability to leave out heated waterers & get away without winter-proof coops.

One-Time Expenses

I linked examples of each product for you, but usually you can find the cheapest options locally.

Total: $958

1. Chicken Coop – $500
2. Fencing/Run – $200
3. Waterer – $60
4. Feeder – $55
5. Baby Chick Brooder – $55
6. Chick Feeder – $7
7. Chick Waterer – $10
8. Electrolytes – $11
9. Chick Grit – $5
10. Chick Food – $20
11. Baby chicks – $35

Recurrent Expenses

Total: $370/year, or roughly $31/month

1. Food – $9/month
2. Bedding – $20/year
3. Treats – $13/month during winter months ($52); Use code “OAKABODE” to save 10%!
4. Chicken-sitting – $120/year
5. Medical Care – $60/year
6. Damage repair – $10/month

What About Extra Care In The Winter?

If you live in a climate that freezes during winter like ours (we live in Wisconsin), there are a few extra important expenses to consider.

The Importance of Soldier Fly Larvae

During the winter, we always supplement our backyard hens with dried insect treats. Since they are not able to find nearly as many insects as they would free ranging during the summer, we do our best to make up the difference. Insects provide many of the micronutrients that chickens need (which also contribute to the beautiful dark orange yolks of happy free ranging hens), so we supplement our girls with GrubTerra. (Thanks for sending us the goodies, GrubTerra!) If you want to save a few bucks, you can use the code “OakAbode” to save 10% at checkout.

Do They Need Supplemental Heat?

I do not add any extra heat to my coop in the winter, and many chicken experts recommend avoiding doing so except in the case of extreme weather. (We brought the chickens into our basement during a 1-week stretch where the weather got to -20F for about a week, but that was it.) In most cases, the risks of adding heat outweigh the benefits. Heat lamps should never be used inside chicken coops due to great fire risks. (Even if the lamp is far away from anything it could ignite, many coop fires have been started by feathers that floated up to the lamp, started to smolder, and then fell back down & ignited the flames.)

Heated roosts and heated mats are often considered safer than heat lamps, but if the chickens are accustomed to added heat and the power goes out during a cold spell, chickens could die due to the shocking drop in temperature without time to acclimate. However, some people (and chickens!) really do love these supplemental heating options!

Moisture Is The Enemy

In addition, excess heat can cause excess moisture. The higher the humidity in the coop, the more likely chickens are to become get hypothermic and/or catch frostbite. The goal in cold climates is a draft-free coop with plenty of ventilation for moisture to escape. In other words, there should be no lateral air movement where the chickens eat, walk around, and roost, but plenty of venting across the top of the coop to allow moisture to escape.

Rather than adding extra heat, we just make sure the bottom 3/4 of the coop is completely draft free (we used to do this by wrapping it in plastic sheeting when the weather got colder), and by allowing plenty of ventilation across the top.

How To Reduce The Cost Of Owning Chickens

If you’re wondering how to reduce the cost of owning chickens, here are some areas that can bring down poultry expenses dramatically.

Make Your Own Chicken Coop

We made our first chicken coop primarily out of repurposed materials from other construction projects. We really don’t love the look of the old coop, and it certainly wasn’t the most efficient when it comes to chicken care. However, we built the entire coop for about $200, which saved us $300 on our first year owning chickens. We’re finished with their new chicken house, which is so much nicer! (It was well worth the splurge, to us.) You can find the plans on our Etsy shop!

Allow Plenty Of Free Ranging Time

Give them all the (safe) kitchen scraps you can, too! Our chickens love free ranging, and their favorite day of the week is “fridge clean out day”. Of course, it’s important to keep an eye on what your chickens are eating to make sure that it’s safe. But by supplementing their diet with free ranging and kitchen scraps, we save a lot on the cost of owning chickens with reduced feed bills.

Use The Deep Litter Bedding Method

If you haven’t already, I recommend seriously considering & reading up on the deep litter method. It will save a lot of money on bedding. I won’t get into it too much here, but we use this method in our chicken coop, and I will never use anything else. It is essentially a self-composting system that only has to be cleaned 2-3x/year. We’ve never had any trouble with diseases, mites, or the like, and best of all, there is no yucky smell! If you choose not to use the deep litter method, plan on quadrupling the cost of bedding, at the very least.

Does Keeping Backyard Hens Save Money On Eggs?

When considering the cost of owning chickens, it’s important to consider where chickens save money, as well. Of course, backyard hens will lay eggs, which means you don’t have to buy them from the grocery store. While grocery store eggs may just be 1.20/dozen, the quality is bad. I mean, really bad. And I never used to have a problem with them. But ever since I tasted eggs from humanely kept, healthy, happy backyard chickens, I nearly gag at the taste of factory farm eggs. In comparison eggs, factory farm eggs are bland, watery, and totally tasteless.

Therefore, one must compare apples to apples when considering whether the cost of owning chickens offsets the cost of eggs. While factory farm eggs may be cheap, true free range commercial eggs are not. Depending on where you live in the country, free range eggs may be $5/dozen or more. We get roughly 3 eggs/week from each hen. Therefore, if we were to purchase the eggs instead, we would be spending $50/month, rather than the $31/month on 10 hens. In theory, we save about $19/month on fresh, free range eggs by raising them ourselves.

Are Backyard Chickens Really Worth It?

Although the startup cost of owning chickens may seem high, I’m here to argue that it’s still worth it. For us, keeping backyard chickens is about a lot more than saving money on eggs. Keeping backyard chickens means we aren’t voting for the factory farming industry. It means we experience joy every time we go into the backyard and interact with our girls. And it also means that we get beautiful, organic fertilizer delivered right to our own backyard, for free! (Seriously, this saves us hundreds on compost every year!)

Consider other hobbies. Gym membership? $720/year. Daily coffee shop habit? $1500/year. Monthly haircuts? $600/year. Or more! When push comes to shove, the joy we experience from raising backyard overwhelmingly outweighs the cost of owning chickens itself. And what’s even best? They provide us free, healthy breakfast in the form of beautiful, dark orange eggs, too.