At least in my experience, we don't produce enough food alone for the chickens. They certainly get 100% of our food waste, but they would starve if we didn't supplement them with store-bought food.

Depends on size of family and size of flock, and amount of land available to graze.

Eggs are very, very cheap. Building materials and time are not. Obviously the upkeep costs for laying hens is super low, but it's the startup cost that turns most people off the idea. Eggs are about $3/dozen where I am. You have to eat a _lot_ of eggs before it's actually a net positive endeavor, probably many, many years worth.

My parents have a coup on their hobby farm which my dad built on the weekends. It looks great and the eggs taste even better. That said, they were never under the impression this was a way to _save_ money, the math just doesn't make any sense.

Can confirm. I am in New England. The startup cost was about $1000 for me, including coop, coop reinforcements, chickens, feed, and various misc equipment. I have 8 hens and basically if I sold a year’s worth of eggs I could break even. That’s sold, not eaten, because I could sell for roughly double the grocery store price.

So realistically the difference is that I get fresh eggs every day, I never run out, and they are fun.

What did you spend $1000 on? I just bought some wooden beams and wire mesh. The chickens eat whatever we didn't finish the night before. Though I usually scoop in some extra rice or pasta knowing we have chickens.

They lay their eggs in basically anything. Mine sit in a Aldi crate on it's side.

Spent $150 on 8 chickens from a reputable farm, which included their starter kit (heater, feed, feeder, water, etc.). Was overkill but they made it super easy. Could have saved some money on Tractor Supply chickens but also got cool breeds and all great layers.

$600 on the largest coop Tractor Supply sold. It is just barely big enough for all the chickens but it does work.

The rest on reinforcement hardware since I have hawks and foxes all over my property. Metal mesh and wood to reinforce all around the coop. Also things like sand to fill the bottom of the coop, anchors to keep it down, etc.

Over time I spent a bit more to replace some bullshit hardware of the coop.

I could have saved some by building the coop from scratch but also this one has a nice design that I wouldn’t have come up with on my own without seeing how the chickens actually behave.

Most "back yard" chicken operations do not have adequate area to graze more than a bit. Even if you do, you'd probably need feed to get eggs regularly. I've never heard of anyone raising layers without feeding them.