Chicken-shares

In a recent interview, I was asked to share stories of early lessons learned on the farm.  I mentioned our ill-fated attempt to become mule skinners, but I might just as well have talked about our first chickens.

Although I'd had chickens in the past, Mark and I didn't have any poultry when the time came to move to our farm six years ago.  We also didn't have the cash to buy them, so it might have taken us a couple of years to become chicken-keepers if one of our neighbors hadn't stepped in.

This neighbor loved fresh eggs and had plenty of cash, but as an actor, he had to be ready to jump in the car to drive to Atlanta on a moment's notice and couldn't take care of a flock.  He suggested a compromise --- how about he pay for the birds, we do the caretaking, and all three of us split the eggs?

A hundred bucks bought twenty point-of-lay pullets, and boy did they ever lay.  Our neighbor ate perhaps a dozen eggs a week, and we hadn't yet learned the true joy homegrown eggs, so we did the same.  That left another eight dozen or so eggs to deal with every week...and we barely knew anyone in the area to give or sell them to!

Soon, we'd offloaded two-thirds of the birds onto my father, which left a more manageable flock (which we were able to feed on our limited income).  Those birds were the inspiration for Mark's chicken waterer invention and also helped me learn a lot about permaculture and farm ecology, so they were worth every egg-filled day.  But if you have plans to follow our lead, you  might want to do things a little differently.

Actually, I think chicken-shares are a pretty good idea, as long as you start out with the right number of hens.  To make economic sense for the main caretaker of the birds, though, the investor should probably kick in some percentage of the feed bill as well as paying the startup costs.  You'll also need to think ahead to what happens two years hence when the flock is declining in laying vigor --- who will kill the birds, who gets the stewing hens, and how will new chicks come on the scene?

Has anyone else had experience with a chicken-share?  I'd be curious to hear about your own adventures.