Meattie order from Central Hatchery ... great price - Page 8

We're planning on processing our first group this coming Friday & Saturday.  We spent some time setting up a butchering area in my husband's garage.  We've never done more than 2 at a time on our own, but I think we're ready.  The plan is to do about 20-30 this coming weekend and then let the others grow another week or so.  We'll hopefully have them all done the first week of May when all the new layer/DP chicks come in so we can start all over again! 

Be sure and weigh them, take some pics and all...am very interested in your finished product and how your processing went! 

Swamp should be done with his by now, maybe?  I'd sure like to know how that all went down and if he was satisfied with the finished weights and the total cost of his meats. 

Out of 102, I have processed 39 so far.  I will finish the rest tomorrow.  They are just over 7 weeks and are averaging about 5 1/2 pounds, dressed without the giblets.  They have consumed 34, 40 pound bags of feed.  At $13.75, that's $467.50 plus $114 to buy the birds, $581.15 total cost.  At approximately 561 pounds, my cost is approximately $1.04 per pound.

Ralph

Great to hear from you, Swamp!  Sounds like you had good finish weights.  Is $1.04 per lb typical for chicken?  I don't buy chicken in the store, so haven't priced it for a very long time...what's the going rate for chicken per lb nowadays? 
 

Ok - numbers time!

We processed 22 today at 5 1/12 weeks from hatch.  We handpicked the biggest, which were mostly boys.  They ranged from 2.75 lbs (it seemed bigger!) to 4 lbs. with an average of 3.64 lbs. 

All 52 chickens have eaten 500 lbs of starter & scratch.  So each chicken cost $.78, has $1.02 in supplies, and has eaten $2.50 in feed.  Each chicken today cost $4.30 to raise - or $1.18 per pound in dressed weight.

Processing took FOREVER today because my husband's plucker didn't work as expected.  We've got about 2 weeks to come up with something before it's time to do the rest.  :)  For our fall batch we're thinking we'll do the whole group at 6 full weeks and just keep some out for roasters after that.  Live and learn.