Many people are thinking about building a backyard chicken coop, but does the investment required really make sense? Sure, you can get an endless supply of great eggs and other poultry product, but will the return be worth what you spend in materials? Lets take a look at the simple math of this venture.
Required items to build a standard size chicken coop, that will hold roughly 20 hens.

1. Set ofplans to construct your building - $30
2. Buildingmaterials, including wood, screws, wire, gravel, and miscellaneous otheritems - $100
3. Chickens- Surprisingly cheap to buy.
   You can get them for about $4 to $5 each.
   Wewill estimate $100 for this exercise.
   Note that you can find wonderful deals on chickens online from many various sources.
   Just search and you can find many.
   
4. Feedand miscellaneous costs - A bag of feed will last months, and goes forabout $10.
   
5. Totalinvestment roughly $240 plus your afternoon to construct your coop.
   

Using 20 chickens in your backyard coop, you can expect around a dozen eggs per day or more.
To be conservative, we will use a dozen.
Farm fresh eggs, especially brown eggs, will go for $2.
50 or more per dozen, and people buy these things by the truckload.
$2.
50 per day means that in about 3 short months, your investment has paid for itself.
If you factor in your own personal usage, and the fact you will likely get more eggs than we are estimating, the payback period is much shorter.
So if building your own chicken coop worth it? Absolutely!