Keeping chickens for eggs: Is it profitable?

Not really. We have kept chickens for 5 plus years and they haven't paid off yet. We have had up to 30 laying hens and some times we couldn't give the eggs away because we had so many. We pay about $11.00 for a 50lb bag of layer pellets and they last about 10-14 days right now. We only have 13 chickens and roosters and they free roam during the day and are fed at night. During the winter they would/will go through the same bag in a week. In the winter they slow down on laying and we have to gather the eggs before they freeze throughout the day. There is way to much info to write about regarding this so my answer is just plain NO. Chickens are a conversation starter. Interesting and funny to watch but not profitable unless you raise 100's of them. We do use the eggs ourselves but you can only eat so many eggs a week before you are sick of them. We usually only charge $1.50 or less if we do sell them to our neighbors but generally we just give them away. We have entered them in the local fair and won ribbons for best in show or size.