Advice on pricing for meat sale

[sewhorsey]

Hi Jeff,

The feed is $23.00 for an 80 pound bag. It is a product made with organically produced grains and Fertrell nutri-balancer. I have a local feed mill and I will check into ordering from them. I am currently using their feed for our personal chickens, but was concerned that meat chicken customers would want more "organic value" for their dollar. I also have heard good things about the Fertrell products and wanted to try them.

I don't have facilities to grind my own.

I don't buy the local organic feed at the Agway, because that is $24.00 for 50 pounds!!

My chicks are coming from JM Hatchery, we are in their closest shipping zone. We are outside of Philadelphia, PA. There is a closer hatchery, but I really want to try the poulet rangers that JM carries. I have a hard time with the Cornish X...too messy and sickly.

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. I will go for $3.00 a bird. I am going to be working really hard to make this happen.

Best wishes, Amy

 

[Bossroo]

My advise would be what Jeff said, and I would add that by switching to the Cornish X you could slaughter them at 6-8 weeks of age instead of 11 - 12 weeks and still get the same amount of meat yield per crop. I came to this conclusion years ago. I used to raise RIR, NHR, and PRs for my family, then realised that that was for the jollies and wasn't providing for my family's food needs in a timely or volume manner. So, I swithced to the Cornish X. Economics 101 ... TIME IS MONEY. That would save you 3 weeks of time and labor per crop. This savings would allow you to raise another batch of 30 birds for the same amount of your production labor ( 3 crops instead of 2). That alone will increase your eficiency and therefore your profits. Good luck.

 

[Kim_NC]

Quote:
Amy, we get $2.99 per Lb, retail. And they 'fly' out of our booth at farmers markets.

I agree with the others.....take a look at alternatives for feed, etc to reduce your cost. Our cost runs about $6.00-6.50 for a 4-5 lb finished weight.

 

[vermontgal]

Whole chickens at our co-op = 3.69 / lb "natural raised"
= 5.19 / lb "organic" certified

Whole chickens at our farmer's market
range from $3.25 / lb on up to $3.75 / lb. not organic
chicken "shares" = 5 chickens (~4 lbs per bird) for $75

Direct from farmers via Craigslist
best price around $3 / lb. not organic

Find out what customers in your area would be paying for similar retail, and then price under it but not too much. I bet the Philly area has a higher retail cost than Vermont, or some other more rural / ag areas.

 

[Mr.Grantly]

What about putting more weight on the birds. We grew ours to the average weight of 6 pounds. The grower group I belong to grows all there birds to that weight. The small ones go first but no one complains. This year the group sold 1600 birds @ that weight and for 8.12/ kg/ pasture poultry/gov inspected/vaccum pack and flash frozen. Customers put a lot of trust in the product when it is gov inspected

Grant