Boy, I sure wish we did. Or even just in the neighborhood. 
if you name the soup then it makes it easier.
I don’t think you realise just what a vast gulf exists between commercial chicken living conditions and what backyard chickens get. New California regulations for 2015 mean chickens get twice the previous industry-standard amount of living space - an amazing 116 square inches, or approx 11 inches by 10.5, per chicken. Just check out those amazing ‘enriched’ cages and marvel that chickens are now so pampered that they “have enough room to fully extend their limbs and turn around freely”. Then figure that once the eggs have come out of the ‘barn’ they will spend a week or two in the logistics chain before they hit the supermarket shelf. “care” usually consists of a squirt of vaccine at the start of their lives, non-stop antibiotics, and tossing them in the dumpster as soon as they stop looking 100% healthy.
Our chickens live in a crappy ramshackle old converted pony stall rather than ‘enriched’ cages and for 9 chickens have about 15 square metres indoors, double that in an outdoor run, and get to run around loose in the bushes during summer days. As well as pellets they get to eat wheat, grass, vegetables, bugs, weeds and lord knows what else.
The eggs get eaten within a week of laying, more usually within a day or two. They taste great, and come in a variety of sizes so you can adjust quantities for recipes really easily. To match that a commercial producer would probably have to charge $5 per egg, which is why they don’t even try.
Are our chickens super cheap? I honestly haven’t a clue. Capital investment was a couple of bucks per chicken, a couple of rolls of chicken wire, one feeder, one waterer, one heat lamp, one warmer to stop the waterer freezing, one low-wattage heater, one humane neck-breaking gizmo, two feed storage bins. Everything else was old bits of junk and lumber found lying around the property. Running costs are a sack of feed every few weeks which we pick up at the same time as our kitty litter, cat food, fence wire, whatever else catches our eye at the supply store. They certainly aren’t expensive enough that we’ve ever thought about getting rid of them. In fact we are more likely going to upgrade them to a purpose-built chicken house just to make things a bit more convenient, which will make the ‘economics’ even less favourable :dubious:
It maybe helps that we don’t have kids, but there are packets in our freezer labelled “Hank”, “Bloomer” etc.
We had 9 chickens at a house we rented in Davis, CA; man, there is plenty I miss about them. They were free range, and the house we rented had a large yard, plus a small pasture/paddock where they could walk around all day. The neighbors loved it, because we had some cool looking birds- a Golden Laced Polish, a Jersey Giant, a Rhode Island Red, some Americaunas, a Brahma…I can’t remember 'em all. But they kept the bugs down, and after we got them, our Black Widow population went to nil. The feed attracted some mice, but our Parsons Russel terrier took care of them, so it was a win/win. My wife is an avid gardner, and when she would rake out the garden beds, the chickens would come over and peck the beetles and other insects - the wife really loved that. And I loved walking out to the coop in the evening (it was actually a stall in the barn out back, that I had put hardware cloth all around), after they had all come back to roost. I would go out there with a beer and close up the coop and watch them coo softly. Very relaxing for me.
The eggs were **so much better **than anything I can get in the store - organic or no. The family got sick of the frittatas, stratas, and quiche, but whatcha gonna do? The only negative was having to hose off the deck every few days (but the grass around the deck did AWESOME), and the minimal cost of the heat lamp we kept on at night during the winter.
What’s stopping me from keeping hens is the smell of the layers mash (chicken feed). We kept hens when I was a kid. They sell layers mash on a street in town here, I avoid walking past it.
Also our hens were rescue hens from the battery farm. Knarled beaks, dangling legs and strange shaped eggs with double yolks.
Just an FYI to the OP in regards to the comments from some posters about selling excess eggs. In Australia it is technically illegal to do so unless you go through the rigmarole of obtaining the appropriate food handling certificates and accreditation.
Now that I think of it, there were some hoops to jump for selling eggs from the New Mexico farm.
Mom feeds her hens mostly a dry grain-based feed with nearly no smell at all, supplemented by assorted weeds and veggies, plus all the bugs they can scratch. I’ve never encountered any chicken feed that could be described as a “mash”.
And what the authorities don’t know won’t hurt them! 
We’ve got four ex-battery layers who’ve given us four eggs a day for the last 12 months. But we’re only a family of 5, so I sell off 1-2 doz a week. The chooks are totally free-range (have an area app 400 sq metres to scratch and mosie around) and we feed them a commercial ‘free range’ mix which is basically dry grains. A 20kg bag lasts app 4 weeks…so it costs us $5.00 per week to feed the girls.
Initially I advertised the eggs on a BSS site (local community Buy, Swap & Sell) and was inundated with responses to buy the eggs for $5.00 per doz. I now have one regular customer who purchases however many leftover eggs I have at the end of a week (mostly 2 doz). You do the math.
To buy certified free range eggs in the supermarket costs around $8 per doz here. And with the dodgy certification system, there’s no way of knowing if they’re truly freerange anyway! My customer knows my chooks are fair-dinkum rangers.
So yes, they’re good value. I know my chooks are well cared for and have access to all the stuff they need. And the eggs are bright and stand proud and high in the pan when cooked!
True. and the Australian way! Just thought it was worth pointing out.
We had chooks growing up, and I get the occasional dozen from a mate who has about half a dozen chooks in his backyard. Completely agree that there is no comparison between the eggs you get from backyard chooks and those bought in the supermarket.
I’ve wanted to keep backyard chickens for a while and it’s definitely on my 5-year plan. Are you telling me I can get - free - chickens that will lay double yolks? Double the yummy goodness?
Shit, I’d pay extra just to get them if there was a breed that tended towards double-yolks.
Yeah, the possible consequences gave me pause. Not that I think the risk is all that high, but it just takes one person to get sick after buying your eggs… And I’m pretty risk-averse when it comes to something that has huge consequences and not much gain, even if the risk is so small.
So I don’t sell mine. There’s an informal bartering system at work in my neighbourhood. Nobody keeps score, but whatever excess people have is shared around. Plus we often gift family and friends with extra eggs. I do sell my honey at the front gate, as the legalities for honey are much easier, though sometimes I barter it too.
I can’t believe how much nicer my eggs are. And I used to by the good quality ones too, not the cheapy battery eggs. I think some of it is the good living conditions and proportions of bugs in their diet, but I reckon the majority is due to the freshness. It’s not rare that I’ll be eating an egg that is hours old, or a day or two at most.
Chickens are pretty good to have if it fits your lifestyle. We have 7 (Americunas and yellow sex links). I must spend at least a whole hour a week taking care of them. Seriously, once a week fill the water and feed, 2 minutes to get eggs when I get home from work, and well that’s it. We go away for 5-7 days, and don’t do anything except make sure the water and feeders are full and pick up all the eggs at the end. Have a 3x6 coop with an enclosed run underneath and an extended run that’s just some chicken wire.
My kids don’t have pets, so do stupid chicken tricks with chickens they raised from little chicks.
Chickens will eat just about anything that’s left over. And they poop IIRC about 2 cubic feet per year of really good fertilizer if you cure it. I finally got a small two section composter just for the chicken poop to speed up the process for $99.
The eggs are definitely better. Weird thing is that the eggs are much denser and don’t spread out when you fry them.
So, if you like eggs, have leftovers to feed them, use the compost, etc, chickens to me at least seem to be pretty decent value with practically zero effort. Plus whenever we do have an extra dozen, I give 'em to someone and that’s always a welcome present.
Along with the hens, we have a pair of domestic geese living on our pond. We watch for any nest building and steal her eggs, not wanting more geese. I usually feed them to the dogs, but occasionally I’ll fry one up, basting it and cooking slowly to sunnyside up perfection.
I know all about that 
.
We found a restaurant that will pay stupid money for goose eggs. They take the egg out to show the customer, then make an omelet from it for even stupider money.
Of course, you don’t necessarily need to hide from the authorities. Some places might have rules against selling eggs, but not all do, especially not for a small-scale operation. My mom’s half-dozen hens, for instance, are completely above-board. She had to get some sort of license when she got them (I think it was about a half-page form), and occasionally an inspector from the city comes to count them and see how much space they have, but that’s about it for the red tape.
Aside from the size, are they different? I’ve heard that duck eggs are much richer-tasting and fattier (makes sense, the meat is richer-tasting and fattier).
Goose eggs are like duck eggs in taste. The yolk is huge in relation to the entire egg. A sunny-side up goose egg looks comical with its gigantic golden yellow yolk and needs three or more pieces of toast to even attempt to soak up its gooey goodness.
ETA: also, the shells are very thick and difficult to break properly.
How come that goose eggs and duck eggs aren’t sold in stores (at least not that I am aware of)?
Not enough demand. Plus they lay a clutch of eggs at a time; they haven’t been bred selectively to create an animal that lays an egg a day. Most birds lay 2 to 8 eggs and then incubate that clutch. A dozen duck eggs, when a bird’s yearly production is only a few dozen, would be costly.