Keeping hens/growing plant for profits

[Notyourcat]

I’ve always assumed that keeping hens would be smelly, noisy, hard work and with little profit. Similarly, I’ve always thought that growing plants for profit could be very hard work. If you do either of these, what is the reality or day to day life like? Is it worth it?

I can’t imagine you would make much profit keeping hens (presumably to sell the eggs?). It’s more of a hobby than a business at that scale. We have ducks which are quite productive layers. The 3 girls lay about 4-5 eggs a week each. So maybe at most 12 eggs make it, some get lost or crack or whatever. That’s 2 half dozen eggs at £1.50 each, or £3 a week if we sold them. They go through a bag of food a month at £13 each plus mealworms which aren’t absolutely necessary but they cost about £15 a month. It’s definitely not a money maker but they’re pets so that’s fine. Plants might be easier but you’d need a lot of garden and greenhouse space.

Also can’t speak for chickens, but ducks are definitely smelly, noisy and destroy your garden!

Unless you've got the space (and patience) to put in a large asparagus bed, I'd doubt you'd make much growing veg - there's a reason fields are so big!
You also have to remember that unless you plan to invest in poly-tunnels etc. whatever you grow will be seasonal and when you've a crop of, say, runner beans so has everyone else.

When I got my chickens I was told to NEVER try to calculate how much an egg cost me!

So, not a money maker. Do you grow fond of them?

Thanks everyone, you’ve confirmed that I should probably do something else as a side job. I read that Bamboo plants sell for up to £100 a plant! Has anyone tried growing/selling these?

Always remember that the phrase "up to" includes the number zero.

I've got a couple of hens, and yes they are great characters! The eggs are lovely too. But as pp said....I've avoided working out the real cost of each egg!

I have pet chickens, and though in the summer the 8 of them lay way more than we can eat (even though 2 of them are very elderly), but you'd need an awful lot of chickens to really make any money - and in the winter they hardly lay at all.
My parents grew bedding plants when I was a child, and dads cousin had a bigger plant nursery. Its really, really hard work, unrelenting, and if the weather is bad you can see your sales drop massively - its all about the weather up to the first May bank holiday iirc. These days it must be even worse with the sales of plug plants.
Dads cousin also grew christmas trees, and apart from needing a lot of land and taking a long view, those were pretty good as a return as they need virtually no looking after (the evil geese ate the weeds and patrolled for intruders) and he did pick your own so not much work at the point of sale

Thanks @CMOTDibbler that’s very interesting. I am tempted to try the plants as a hobby, but I don’t want to get hens and then regret it/give them up. I have to say, they do look adorable waddling around clucking though.

To give you some perspective, we got our ducks during the first lockdown. They laid their first egg in October. We calculated that golden egg had cost us at least £700.