You can free-range chickens and use little feed but here you would lose most of them to hawks, owls, fox, and coyotes.
I have raised some hogs and saved a little on the meat by buying the feed in bulk and doing my own cut/wrap but its not that cheap.
I wind up with 75 -85 cents/ pound in the meat, but its better pork than the store stuff.
Absolutely, without a doubt.
Years ago one the gals I worked with had a chicken farm and she used to let us know when the company was coming to pick up the birds. so we would all tell her how many we wanted and for 69cents per bird we had fresh chickens --- the 69cents was what her neighbor charged to slaughter and pluck the birds. It was the best chicken I had ever eaten in my life.