Hypothetically speaking.... (regarding livestock)

[b.m.]

My wife and I recently starting raising chickens- which I thoroughly enjoy and will even more once they start laying (3 more months-ish), but it brought up a question... Assuming there was an end of the world as we know it event, and we had to fend four ourselves for all of our food- How large of a breeding stock of chickens would you need if you intended to have a sustainable supply of four chickens to slaughter per week? I mean, it's just a hypothetical question.... Right now in our normal diets, the majority of the meat we eat is chicken, which is what brought it up... I imagine it would have to be a pretty high number- that would add up to 200 chickens to slaughter annually, and they take about six months to come to maturity (esp if you want to get a few eggs out of the hens before they head for the chopping block)...

BM

[Rev]

Four chickens per week? That's a lot of chickens for a subsistence lifestyle.

[Blacksmith]

Do you want layers too or just meat? Do you plan on hand raising or hen raising?

If they are hen raised you will need around 100 chickens and 10 roosters. That might seem like a lot but you are eating a lot of chicken.

[Dawgboy]

Somebody posted a thread a while back about something like "pound for pound, Best livestock for production"... Look for that one as it had great info on cost of input(feed and water, etc) per pound of protein, and if I remember correctly, Quail and Rabbits were at the top of the list.

Cutting down to 2 whole chickens a week would make a huge difference...

[b.m.]

I have big family- My wife and I, six kids, and her parents, ten total, are currently living under one roof. I often joke that we need a restaurant style kitchen (but it would be nice), since we have to cook such large volumes of food sometimes. I realize is not the best situation for a SHTF scenario, being single would make survival so incredibly easier.

But to my question- I realize there are probably more efficient livestock animals to keep, or supplementing livestock with hunting. One wild boar or deer every no and then would go a long way to reducing the demand on kept livestock.

BM

[Blacksmith]

With that many people to feed you will likely need at least a 20 layers as well to keep up with enough eggs. That sure is a lot of feed to go through.

[ZombieGranny]

52 weeks a year x four birds = 208 total birds.
Raising from bought chicks, 200 for $298.00 --
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/barbecue_special.html

Are you thinking of having the hens hatch the eggs, or are you wanting to incubate them?
The most eggs we've put under a standard hen is 12, but you can incubate as many as you have room for.
Rather than listening to one old lady, try this VERY good site -
http://www.backyardchickens.com/f/5/inc ... ching-eggs

[b.m.]

I don't plan on doing anything of the sort- like I said, I was just curious thinking about it hypothetically. And yes- I've been spending a lot of time on backyard chickens. We have 10 hens (so far, the feed store said they were 98% hens when we bought them) for eggs. Doing the math, I think we should get 30 - 40 eggs a week, which is more than we will most likely eat. We'd give/sell the excess to friends and family...

We sometimes do breakfast for dinner nights, and we can go through 18eggs in one meal sometimes, but we don't do that every week. Now, if we had that many eggs coming out of our backyard, we might do that more often. I dunno... that's still a couple of months away.

BM

[Blacksmith]

Tens hens will give you around eight eggs a day during peak laying season. This will be much lower during the winter months. Eight eggs a day for ten people seems light to me. We average around 2 eggs per person per day. We build up excess and that carries us through the winter to a degree. Late winter we start running out.

If you are relying on them for a major food source you will probably eat more.

[ZombieGranny]

We have 7 hens these days, that give us 5 - 7 eggs a day.
Enough for us, to send a dozen home with a kid or two, and to share with one of the neighbors.
I like to have at least one laying hen per person.

Blacksmith, your hens will lay more in Winter if they get warm water and/or food when it is cold.

[Blacksmith]

Blacksmith, your hens will lay more in Winter if they get warm water and/or food when it is cold.

I have tried that. I use a water catchment system I built off the roof of the barn. The tank is black and absorbs a fair amount of heat when not shaded making the water warm in the winter.

It seems to be a light thing. The best I could do was around half the hens laying everyday. Humping warm food to the barn to feed chickens in the PAW is likely out anyway.

[2now]

First, look at eating more eggs and less chickens. The eggs will show up pretty reliably every day and be ready to eat right then. You will get a better return on your investment. So 10 people, 40 hens is about 3 days per person per day. That's a good solid base to feed your family from.

Second, we put one of the solar powered lights on chicken coop outside the south window, so that there was more ligth in the winter regardless of the grid.

If you are using hens to raise the chicks, look for some older breeds, we had great luck wit bantam chickens, and amazing results with silkies. They have not had the parenting bred out fo them. Jsut give them some regular eggs too to keep the main flock numbers up.

finally, it is MUCH easier to survive with a good family backing you than going solo.

[RogerK]

Contreax quail are ready to butcher at 6 weeks, are laying at 8 weeks.
Chickens (heavy breeds or dual use breeds) can be butchered at 12-16 weeks and are laying at 20-22 weeks.
Both need to brood their young (28 days for chicken eggs)

Rabbits have 6-10 young about every 60 days, which can be butchered at 8 weeks.

For me, I would see about a Finn Sheep. One ewe can produce 6-10 lambs per year, every year. The record for one ewe in a 8 year period is 73 lambs. That's a lot of meat. And they are browsers.