Is it a net gain, net loss, or break even when you weigh the eggs/meat versus the cost of the feed?
Loss. I got them when I bought my farm to just get practice. I don't even keep meat birds, though in the homesteading thread I covered having to butcher a egg bird that killed itself recently.
When eggs were high I made profit, right now it's pretty close to break even until you consider time as well as the expense/effort dealing with any diseases/mites/major coop cleanout and bedding change etc. It's just very hard to compete with $2-3 a dozen. (And I dont have the time or patience to be trying to pimp them as fancy free range farm eggs for 4-5/doz out here because everyones and their cousin has chickens already)
But kinda like ammo reloading, folks say it's more about the quality than the quantity. My interest wasn't to go full off grid self sufficient or anything, but idea was to hopefully have enough things from my hobby farm to certainly really help extend out how long I can do with disruptions to supply etc.
Meat birds might be kinda cost effective except for the pain of processing them, they eat a ton, but grow up to eating size in the span of just a few months, but that means you are needing a stream of chicks, whether that's hatching a batch monthly, or buying chicks from mass breeders, I don't know how well trying to get your own meat chickens to lay well goes, they usually get so big they stop moving much and get filthy and often die by a year old, but at least they are chunky for food.
Some love quail but I think same issue, and i hate the idea of having to kill and butcher myself so many critters just for a couple meals, I've started to consider rabbits that I might be able to feed a fair amount of my field grass but it'd still need I think richer alfalfa in the mix. Can't let them just free roam, meat rabbits are dumb and die or just dig and run off.
As much as I hate them, the goats arn't the worst from being easy breeders, eat mostly whatever, though theyll leave a ton of grass as they significantly prefer weeds/shrubs/tree's. I'd maybe try mutton but sheep can't get any supplemental feed or minerals goats get because copper is toxic to them.
