Travlr
Well-known member
Chickens and cows:
Chicken houses are around 50 feet by 500 feet (and trending bigger). Little more than half an acre. Parking area for loadout, access roads, litter storage sheds, space between houses - let's say 2 acres per house for land. That $20,000 profit per house then becomes $10,000 per acre. Compare that to pasture for cows. Heavy environmental regulations and permitting on chicken houses may require buffer space between the houses and the property lines which then require more acreage and reduces those numbers. But still, compare to cows on pasture.
Many chicken growers here also have cattle. I think most started with cattle and added chickens. Those guys get "free" fertilizer for the pastures. Buffer zones around houses are pastures with cattle. It is a combination that works for some. Shared equipment and labor between the two.
Here there are 3 chicken companies, so some competition and choices. One neighbor with 8 houses recently changed companies and estimated that he will make an additional $100k per year with the swap. He tends to be overly optimistic, so maybe "only" half that much. He did have to make significant changes to the heating systems and additions to the evaporative cooling systems. About $150,000 of changes I think. He also does construction work - tractor trailers, excavators, dozers, big wheeled loaders. He is ambitious. Has lots of cows as well. Ten years ago, he cleared some land for me. He had a 1980 Case 1450 and an old small excavator and an old Ford 9000 dump truck at that time. I don't think he is going broke.
What is my point of all this rambling? That things change and a person has to adapt. My grandfather farmed all his life on about 100 acres. No tractor until he was in his 70's. Then an 8N Ford. Milked a few cows by hand and sold milk, wife churned and made butter, had 3 small curtain sided chicken houses and feed by hand out of a push cart with a hand scoop into feeders scattered in the house, a few hogs, grew some crops, cut hay and stacked it around a wood pole in the ground or threw it loose in the loft of a barn with a pitchfork. He was in his 90's when he died. Raised 4 children and was "succcessful". But that approach would not work now. But, he was happy with life.
You can feed chicken litter to cattle too.