[Dominic]

absolute most £100 a year for 4 chickens, but I supect considerably less than that.

[joyfull]

I get through a sack of feed a week £7-25 and half a sack of mixed corn £6.50 a sack for my 50+ birds (they completely free range so find a lot of their own feed and quite a few are boys so no eggs off them  ), however like others have said that is cheap compared to my cat. This cat is a feral cat who lives either in the out house or in a lorry but seems to have developed expensive taste and now will only eat whiskas oh so  , however both the cat and the chickens keep the mouse population down and living surrounded by fields there can be plenty of those, so in my opinion are well worth the cost   .

[hillfooter]

With 4 hens L/F hybrids that's about 9 X 20 kg bags of layers pellets a year at around £8.50 a bag + a half a 20KG bag of mixed poultry corn at a similar price would cost around £80.  If they free range and you feed them vegetables too that will reduce the feed but really if it was more than a bag I'd suggest you were overfeeding them on such scratch feeds.  £2 on oystershell would be worth buying too.  All the rest is unnecessary.  So I think if you were very frugal you could get away with £75 ish.

To find feed at £8.50 you'd need to buy direct from a main feed merchants who supplies farmers not the local petstore.  You should use a branded product and shop around  for the best deals you may do better than £8.50 for none organic layers pellets.  Last year feeds which cost £8.50 now were availablle for £6.80 so it's been going up well ahead of RPI.
HF

[Fisherman]

Forgetting about set up costs that can cost next to nothing to a fortune you will not get much change out of £1.00 per half dozen eggs. However the pleasure you will get from keeping the birds and the quality of eggs is a completely different matter.