I do not understand the mathematics behind the dilemma. I’m assuming only the firts chicks cost money, because down the line they will breed.
But feeding them, housing them - vitamins and doctoring costs a lot of money.
So anyone with couple or more chickens - how much does it cost to have them on the table? And realistically how many eggs do you get?
My parents had 12 chickens for a few years! They’re not bad pets, nor bad starter farm animals!
Compost piles need to be churned constantly or else you’ll just have an oxidized layer on top that makes the further inwards material petrify rather than decompose. If you have hard winters, the pile will eventually freeze, so it’s super important to have it covered, and still churn it in winter so the microbes raise the temp as much as possible. Also, if it’s too dry where you are, microbes won’t break anything down.
I was thinking about them in the historical setting. They just piled up kitchen scraps and other organic waste (there was basically very little non organic waste back then) and they just let it pile up. Chickens were a huge part of managing it, it became basically zero waste circle.
I’m not going to jump into farming anytime soon - I have enough problems just trying to keep some sorrel saplings alive. I haven’t managed it yet. But thankfully I still have some seed left…