- Thread starter
- #11
BBQJOE
Songster
All of your points are considered, and worthwhile.If the shtf your out of luck anyways unless you can still order chicks because the meat birds don't breed true. If you want truly sustainable you need to go with more heritage breeds but if you want to make a few bucks the meat birds are probably the only way to go.
Honestly at 3 bucks a lb for those rangers I think that's cheap for including processing, many ads on craigslist sell for 3 bucks then also take birds in to be processed, which the only plant here that does poultry charges 3 bucks a bird, extra for cutting it up and extra for special packaging, so at 3 dollars a lb I basically did the processing for free. I don't mind because it's a friend of mine but if I get bigger I need to keep better track and figure out if it really pays.
I wouldn't want to raise birds to be 8 or 9lbs, people are used to chicken options bring from a 3 to 5 lb chicken, growing them super large is going to cost an unnecessary amount of money in feed which you will have a harder time recovering
I'm not crazy about processing wildlife, although I can do it. I've done a deer, a few ducks, a couple of rabbits, and of course fish.
I've never done a chicken, but it can't be far from a duck.
All of the flocks I've had, I eventually gave away to go back on the road trucking. I've never 86'd one of my own birds, but I'm sure I could, especially if they were just considered meat birds and no one named or fell in love with them. MM is 25 minimum coming into this next season, and I'd hate to think about 25 birds coming of age at the same time needing dispatched without buyers, so again I do Like the idea of getting folks to make a deposit.
But I'd probably never do the craigslist thing, I don't need a bunch of strangers coming up to my property scoping me out.