Annie, I miss my home-grown yardbird. Even factoring in the cost of labor, your chicken will look beautiful (pink, not yellow), and taste much better than what you're getting at the store. We used to raise 200 a year, and share with my in-laws for their farm raised beef. We ate really well!

Good luck with your chicks.

A friend of mine owns a fairly upscale restaurant. He has access to whatever produce and meats are available, and can afford to pay whatever the price is.

He has a hobby farm and keeps a flock of chickens and other fowl just for his own use, because he finds the flavor of home raised chicken is so much better than what he can buy. He also hates the thought of what unknown substances are in commercial meats.

He raises some pigs for himself as well. He gave me a quart jar of lard from one of them--OMG it's better than any commercial product. Items fried or sauteed in that stuff are heavenly.

So you'll get paid for your labor with quality food that you just can't buy.

You mean this articles?...I caught it too.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/kristof-arsenic-in-our-chicken.html?_r=2&hp

Cookie, the one I saw wasn't NYTimes, but it was basically the same and based on that same Johns Hopkins study, albeit from a different media outlet.

I also saw there is a recall on Dole salad because of salmonella, and one regarding tuna used for sushi and sashimi. That sickened 116 people in 20 states and the company is recalling 58,000+ pounds. Sigh.

prozac is sounding better all the time....

Annie

Our food production has reached the toxic. Consumers who do not and cannot raise their own food must opt for local, sustainably produced food by small producers. Buy local. It's actually more important than buying organic.

I made a promise to myself to buy locally this summer. I also intend to buy all my beef organic. I started my garden yesterday - some cool temp stuff - snap peas, chard and spinach. I need to pick up some seeds for lettuce and regular peas. I will start the rest in three weeks or so.

laceyvail, I agree, buying localling is important, you know where you food came from and who grew it and usually you can find out how, if you care. Local AND organic would be even better, of course.

there are some things I can't get locally, of course, including coffee, citrus fruit, avocados. I could live without the last two, but really like my coffee. I even bought "chick starter" that was produced here in Michigan.

Lettuce is especially easy, I have a friend who grows it in her window box instead of flowers!

Annie

Local, free range, vegetarian feed, no hormone chicken is twice the price of the regular store brands. I really can't afford it. Luckily we are mostly vegetarian.

L, I can raise it for about the same price as local store bought chickens, but that's without factoring in any labor. I figure that these 30 chickens will eat 12 pounds of feed each in 8 weeks, and the hens will weigh about 6 pounds, the roosters about 8. I don't have any idea which are which at this point, but I'm figuring 50/50. Local organic feed is more expensive than the regular stuff, so I'll be paying about $12 for 50 lbs of it. I'll need 370 pounds, but I'll have to buy 400 because that's how it's bagged. $96 for feed, $74 for the chicks (with postage), it's $170.00. Being very optimistic about my yield, I'm figuring 5 lbs per hen and 7 lbs per rooster, or 180 lbs of chicken, or approximately $1 per pound. Remember, I've only factored in actual monetary cost, no time feeding, cleaning coops or doing the actual slaughter and processing. A serving is SUPPOSED to be 4 ounces, so even if you figure 50% to be skin/bones/waste, it's 50 cents a serving.

Frankly, I just don't like commerically raised chicken. It doesn't taste right to me and it's shot too full of "flavor enhancer", which is just salt and water. It seems mushy. So, I'd save a lot of money if I didn't grow chickens, because I wouldn't eat it at all.

Truthfully, I'd rather eat a little of something really good than a lot of something mediocre. I'd rather have one cup of good coffee than a pot of the average stuff. I'd rather eat one ounce of good dark chocolate instead of a pound of the cheap sweet chocolate and I'd much prefer to eat 4 ounces of real chicken instead of twice as much antibiotic/Benedryl/Prozac/arsenic/caffeine laden stuff.

And while I'm at it, what is it about chicken wings? Here they pay 50 cents EACH for a chicken wing, which is nearly all bone and skin. Since I don't eat skin, even crispy skin, and can't eat the bones, that's 50 cents for one BITE of chicken. And wings are more expensive than boneless skinless breasts, with nearly zero waste.

It's crazy, wings used to be cheap...

Anyway, come to Michigan and I'll share chicken with you!

Annie

Just in the name of accuracy, NO chicken raised in the United States has hormones in it. It's against the law. Beef yes, chicken no.

I have the same issue as The Pink One. Organic chicken is too expensive to buy regularly. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place - Whole Foods - maybe there is a more economical source for organic or local chicken.

In the past few months I've stopped eating meat entirely except for a slice of bacon on Easter Sunday at a friend's brunch. I'll probably eat it if offered or if I'm dining out. I'm just feeling indifferent these days. I'll cook it if I have a dinner guest, I'm sure.

Eileen

Go Annie! We love our backyard hens, and I, who didn't like eggs when we got hens (I wanted the compost!) now love them. All the meat we buy is locally produced, and has so much more flavor! I am amazed. We eat a loss less meat than we used to, and I cook most everything else from scratch. I can hardly enjoy going out for dinner these days!

We've stopped purchasing ANY meat products from our local grocery stores. Organic, free-pastured pork & some chicken we purchase locally from Terra Firma Farm. All the beef we consume is from Whole Foods as is some chicken (sometimes Terra Firma Farm doesn't have what we want).

We no longer eat any deli meats. Instead, we cook a large cut of meat & slice our own. We also don't buy any commercial ground meat products (hamburger, sausage, etc.) rather grinding our own.

Our useage of animal protein is way down & is used mostly as garnishes rather than the slab of protein & two sides. My guess is we're down to about 1-1/4 lbs. between the two of us per week (not counting bone/waste weight).

I've pretty much lost any appetite for animal protein except fish & that's becoming harder & harder to follow the Monterrey Bay Watch program.

Chris Hayes' guest the past two weekends was Mark Bittman. What an eye opener. We kill over 9 BILLION chickens in this country every year. I highly recommend going to "Up With Chris Hayes" on MSNBC & watching the tapes of those two shows. They also covered the pink slime issue as well as antibiotics, Prozac, caffeine, & all other ingredients in our commercial beef supply.

Mark Bittman's emphasis was on Americans eating too much animal protein & that there's really no way to produce such quantities without current practices. Imagine, over 9 BILLION chickens every year & increasing. Producers have developed a new slaughter line that processes a bird every quarter second while at the same time the number of inspectors have been reduced by about 8,000 (I think that's the right number). Nobody can accurately inspect anything moving at one per quarter second for any length of time & be effective.

/tricia

For anybody interested, here's a link to Chris Hayes' show with Mark Bittman entitled "Your Food Hyped Up On Drugs" from this past Sunday. The previous week's show with Mr. Bittman is also available at the same site.

/t

Here is a link that might be useful: Mark Bittman on Chris Hayes

Johnliu, I bought a whole organic chicken at Trader Joe's last week and I thought it was reasonably priced (for organic) and it was the best chicken I've had from a grocery store. I have a source for home grown, but have run out of those in my freezer. You might want to compare to WF prices.