Animal feed is very expensive nowadays, and you need to be making plenty of money off the animals and birds to make it pay. I have around 5o laying hens, and then raise chicks, bantams and silkies to sell on. The hen feed bill alone is a lot, and I am now cutting back on my poultry, and hopefully my feed bill.
Lamb prices were up a while back, not sure how things are now. I know a lot of farmers round us are struggling to keep going on their farms, and a lot have come out of the milk business, and diversified. Golf driving ranges, livery horse yards, bowling greens, caravan sites, farmers are doing all these things instead of farming.
Thinking about it, I am about the biggest hen keeper for quite a few miles, in fact not sure where my nearest neighbour with hens is, so that shows, people cannot afford to keep them any more. Let me do it, and buy my eggs - sensible people eh?
Gary, sounds like you have a lot of health problems, and it must have been a struggle in the winter to keep going and feed all those birds. Bad enough for a healthy person to cope with.