The joke is that the first egg costs $X,000. But these have been weird times.
On low-end feed it costs about $0.55/week to keep a Golden Comet alive and I can buy them at 18 weeks old for $20. If one is extremely frugal in sheltering and containing them, doesn't experience any losses to predators, illness, or wandering off, and retail eggs hold above $0.20/ea, a small flock can conceivably break-even during its second year.
That pile of assumptions is unlikely to hold up but everything I've spent on chickens the whole time we've had them is less than the carrying costs of our two dogs over that time. And the dogs have never provided us food.
> The local farm store has changed their policy to not sell less than 4 chickens
The first year we raised chicks the minimums were 6. Best advice to anyone starting out is to buy 18 week pullets or mature hens cycling out from a pastured egg producer at 18-24 months. Raising chicks is much more challenging and attention-demanding than keeping mature chickens and if you manage to keep them all alive you'll still be $20+ into them before they start laying.