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Feed & running cost calculator
How much they eat, how often you will be buying a sack, and what an egg genuinely costs. Add your other monthly spending and the honest number appears alongside the cheerful one.
6 × Hybrid layer (Warren, ISA Brown)
Bred for output. Lays hard for two years, then drops away sharply. Feed: Layers pellets.
Feed a year
273.8 kg
Feed cost
£205.31
A sack lasts
27 days
11.8p
Cost per egg — everything you told us
11.8p
- This is feed only. Bedding, grit, worming, mite treatment, replacement stock and the occasional vet bill are not in it — add a figure for those above to see a realistic cost per egg.
- Setup is not included either. Spread a £500–1,200 coop, run and fencing over five years and it adds meaningfully to every egg for the first few.
- Buy in 20kg sacks from an agricultural merchant rather than small bags from a pet shop — usually around half the price per kilo. Store it in metal bins, because rats chew through plastic.
- Assumes birds in their first full laying year. Output drops in year two and further in year three, so the lifetime cost per egg is higher than the figure above.
- Laying stops during the autumn moult and slows in winter with the short days. The annual figure already averages this out.
The full breakdown, including setup and the bills nobody budgets for, is in what backyard chickens actually cost.