How I Turned My Urban Farm Into My Side Hustle
By: Megan Benson
Tags: Urban Farming, Farming, Side Project, Incubator, Side Hustle

I live in the heart of West Jordan, Utah. This is not your typical farm area, however, we’re zoned for chickens. My backyard farm started small with 6 chicks and a vegetable garden. I now have over 45 chickens in my grow-out pens, 3 dogs, and a potbelly pig.

Sometimes I wonder, how the hell did I get here?

When Covid-19 started, and we went into lockdown I needed a hobby and quick! I love being on the move and having stuff to do, so the stress of being at home was getting to me mentally. I learned quickly that chicks are easy to acquire and fun to raise. Just about any hardware or ranch store sells them for around $4 a chicken. That was too easy, I wanted more. I wanted to hatch my own eggs and create my own flock.

I purchased my first two incubators in March 2020 and haven’t stopped incubating since. There have been some learning moments with each hatch. If you don’t have the right temperature or humidity during a hatch you can kill all of your birds before they even have a chance to hatch. This is not a fun mistake to make, however, I think it’s one that everyone goes through when you start hatching.

I went with the Farmers Innovators incubator, these cost around $150 each. Each incubator holds 41 eggs, I was averaging 60 chickens hatching every 21 days. I would find local farmers that sell their fertilized eggs as well as order some eggs online. It’s typically cheaper when you find eggs locally, however, you won’t find many specific breeds. Locally you will pay around $1.00 per egg, while online it varies from $5 an egg to $10 an egg depending on the breed.

Looking back now, I know that I jumped in too quickly and made a lot of mistakes, including killing my first batch of shipped eggs.

It can be hard to find information on hatching. I sold 99% of the eggs that I hatched and quickly realized I could make $5-$15 for a day-old chick, so I continued to hatch.

Photo submitted by author

Since starting hatching, I now have upgraded to a GQF Incubator that holds 270 chicken eggs per cycle. Amazingly I won this in a raffle that I spent $60 on, this incubator typically costs $800! This allows my hatches to be much larger which results in more revenue. The GQF is more of a professional-grade incubator while the Farmers Innovators is more of a first-timer incubator. The biggest difference I see is in the hatch rates, the Farmers Innovator gave me 50–60%.

While the GQF is hatching around 90–95% of eggs. This means when a full batch of eggs hatches I will see a minimum of $1,200 in profit from one hatch.

My current setup consists of two chicken coops. Our main coop is 12X12 and our two smaller coops are 4X4. This allows us to have separate pens per breed of chicken that we have. This is important for me since I sell my fertile eggs for others to hatch. Typically, when someone buys eggs they want a specific breed and color of bird.

I personally keep more Silkie chickens than any other breed, there are a few reasons why.

Silkie chickens are more like “pets” and are friendlier birds

I can make around $65 for a dozen fertile Silkie chicken eggs

The specific breed is a high demand breed, especially different colors

We also keep 8 egg layer chickens that provide for our home with its egg needs. They lay 6–8 eggs per day.

How can you get started?

Laying chickens vs meat chickens

There is a significant difference between an egg layer chicken and a meat chicken. Meat chickens typically grow out fully within 16 weeks, you can’t keep them longer than that, or you can run into health issues. These birds are not meant to be backyard birds. I do not raise meat birds.

For your average backyard flock, it typically doesn’t matter which type of bird you pick, as long as they’re an egg layer. Any egg-layer chicken will do the job. Different breeds of birds can vary from size, egg color, amount of eggs they lay and the hardiness of the bird in cold weather. Most people aren’t super picky when it comes to the breed if it’s for a backyard flock.

Build a coop for convenience

You will want to build a coop that will not only hold the number of birds you’re getting but also, be easy to access your eggs and to be able to clean it out. Having enough space is important if you live anywhere that gets cold during the winter. Chickens need to be able to stay warm and have fresh water and food during winter.