Average cost of rasing baby chicks?

[Oregon Blues]

A big expense to figure in: the light bulbs for the brooder. Quality is down so badly that a bulb that should last for years is now good for about 2 weeks. I had several bulbs burn out with the last batch of ducklings I brooded. $6 apiece for the outdoor spots (on sale) and I used 3 of them in one brooder and 2 in the other brooder.

No more incandescent light bulbs. After the stores sell all the existing stock, what are you going to use to heat your brooder?

 

[Fly Fisher]

Last spring I did a cost analysis on my feed rations. I based my cost on keeping one bird for one year which is the time period I usually keep a bird. I mix my own feed and use a 20% protien feed for my roosters and a standard layer crumble or pellet for my hens.

Costs in my area for feed are right in line with the costs in the previous posts.

My figure came out to 20.50 per bird per year for roosters 16.00 for hens

 

[Fred's Hens]

I agree with the others. We must all factor more than feed. Initial cost of bird, either through hatching eggs, incubation costs, keeping of parent stock or buying day old chick. Brooding costs is difficult to figure, but it must be. Electricity and bulbs aren't free. Then, there is bedding. Bedding in the brooder and bedding for grow out pen until point of lay.

These costs could easily add up to $5-$7 per bird. Then, one adds in the feed cost. As has been said, breaking even is tough. Making even a teeny profit is even tougher. I often sell some POL pullets and it very difficult, on a small scale, to do little more than break even. As for all the labor? Well, one would make much more money working part time and offering to super size that meal.

 

[kbreak]

I think I pay about $9 for Purina Medicated chick starter 25lbs.. Maybe about $12 for layer pellets 50lbs. My husband bought flock raiser today and $18 for 50 lbs. We paid $8/chick for 10 day old Lavender Orps they are now 5 weeks old I think probably 5 roos.

. This week I bought 3 BCM hens POL for $20 each plus they thru in a blue copper marans chick cause one of the hens was it's momma. Today I got my first 2 eggs. At first my husband thought that was a little high but when he got to figuring it up it really wasn't.

 

[twentynine]

I think it's a pretty good idea.

The key would be to have a clients lined up waiting for POL pullets.

Using my experience-- and that is-- raising 10 pullets at a time. Starting with day olds to POL. I think if you could get $15-$18 price per hen, you would have some jingle in your pocket. Not enough to quit the old 9 to 5, but a little jingle you could use to feed your chicken habit.

I am paying $14 -$15 dollars for 50# of 18% Dumor chick starter. Raising 10 at a time, I do not initially buy a 50# bag, a 50# bag would last 6 - 8 weeks. In my opinion way to long to keep feed in our damp S. La. climate. I buy a 25# bag then a 50# when they run out of the first bag.

Point is, the first 4 weeks, the pullets don't eat that much. It is when they are right at the point of being sold that they are going through a bunch of feed. That's why I am saying raise them to 16-18 week point and then sell them quick as you can. Your profit margin will disappear very fast if you are feeding 50-100, 16 week old pullets, for an extra week.

I would also stick to the "popular" breeds, barred rocks, rhode island reds, black/red/gold sexlinks, black austrolorps, EEs, and others. and as a previous responder said-- buy only sexed chicks, you will have no room in the profit margin to feed cockerals.

 

[SIMZ]

I've often thought how much further ahead I would have been to pay $15-$20 for point of lay chickens! LOL If only they weren't so cute as chicks.

 

[CarolJ]

Unless you run a commercial operation, you aren't likely to make a profit with chickens/eggs. With the cost of the coop, the run, pine shavings, feed, grit, scratch, electricity, water, the purchase of an LGD to protect the flock - and then add to that, the cost of dog food, house, fencing, etc. for that LGD - and my time. No profit is in my future, anyway. We decided to consider chicken-keeping a hobby - and just consider whatever we get from eggs and chicks a bonus.

 

[Resolution]

I just bought four hens to replace some that Mr. Skunk killed. They are six months old and I paid 15 a piece for them. I have found that most people around my area want hens that are already laying or close to it. Everyone sells their hens for 10-15 each. I got wondering how much it costs to feed chicks for five or six months. Would it be profitable to get 25 or 30 chicks and raising then selling them?

This is a very good question. In Vermont this is how many small farmers bring in much needed income. A 'started pullet' sells for 25-45 dollars a piece in Vermont. If your birds are better stock -conditioned from the first day- they're worth more- especially if they are of a novel heritage breed versus a generic commercial breed.

Chick management should not cost anywhere near as much as the average poultier spends. These last few decades have taken people into a busy lane where traffic moves much too quickly and there isn't much time to think things through entirely.
People tend to rear chicks in what can only be described as largely inefficient and unsustainable fashion. Here's where those dollar signs catch up.

1. Lighting
2. Feeding
3. Illness
4.Mortality

We tend to put in a blinding heat bulb that stays on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for at least 5 weeks.
Likewise, we've been conditioned to fill hoppers of dust laden mash for the birds to spread all over the place and inhale 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - and until they are sold or slaughtered.
There are just about always a few birds that just don't thrive from day one but many will appreciate when poop eating and feather picking, toe pecking and other forms of cannibalism become rampant. We can see strains of some nasty bug go through the brooder just as we might at daycare but the difference is -parents don't force antibiotics onto all the children because just one has a runny nose- so- we end up screwing up the immune system of an entire brooder and the precarious tight rope from that day forward is to keep the infection from returning while also maintaining their health and well-being with wholesome supplements from the garden. - Much of this material ends up getting buried in bedding -covered in poop and growing bacteria- -- yeah- so you've just blown several hundred dollars in the hopes of making a penny.

So here's some solutions to curtain expenditures and optimize health. These are tried and true practices of a thirty+ year life with poultry. I hope I'm not derailed by anyone that feels as if I'm saying that what they've been doing is wrong. That's not my objective.

First off, select the right breed. We all love our commercial utility strains but really, like some of our most beloved dog breeds, they are not bred to last and are neither particularly economical nor practical to feed and house- unless you are a small farmer planning on selling many dozens of eggs per day.
It would take too long to list all the breeds I would not suggest so I'll just jot down those that I strongly suggest for the family farm and suburban hobbyist.

1. Barnesvelder
2. Black Java
3. Sumatran
4. Polish
5. Silky
6. Quechua ( including but not limited to the N.A. Quechua AKA " Ameraucana")
7. Yokohama
8. Hamburg


All the breeds I've just listed are heritage breeds. They're fine tuned for surviving factors outside your best plans and still hold on to a certain amount of common sense and personality while still being incredibly productive and personable. They are relatively quiet and calm in temperament. You may find that you won't be able to purchase anything but straight run so you'll need to be prepared to harvest roosters- not a bad thing if you have a freezer and a family to feed. But unlike the big heavy commercial breeds one sees as lawn ornaments in chicken tractors these days, these heritage breeds are actually going to live to a ripe old age and produce eggs that entire time with the least health related problems while consuming a tenth of the feed of the utility breeds. I cannot begin to tell you how often I've been obliged to field an email regarding health issues of old (3-4 years) Buff Orpingtons, Comets, Wynadottes and down the line. If it's a big heavy breed that you see in just about every yard- you might want to really think about the genetic diversity of that stock. They are basically clones of one another at this point.

Also- have the discipline to select a single breed or - only those breeds of a certain size- so Barnesvelder and Black Java are going to grow up and thrive in a single flock together.
Sumatran, Polish, Silky and Yokohama will thrive in their own mixed breed flock. The Hamburg and Quechua get along well in any flock. Mixing sizes big heavy breeds with light smaller breeds is not. You may well know this but I'm writing it for those that may not.

Moving on to materials to help cut costs in chick rearing.


Polypropylene-PP-Plastic-Twin-Wall-Sheet-Board

First off you set up a proper table with a heavy duty vinyl table cloth in a room with very good ventilation and one that children and pets cannot access.
This room should keep a certain mean temperature. This is key.
Head to your local hardware store, home depot or walmart and purchase the flexible plastic sheets one applies to the ceiling and walls of bathrooms.
Fold this sheet into a circle and screw into place. You now have a circular corral for lack of a better term. An environment that holds its heat well, is easy to clean and fits a dozen or more chicks for several weeks. You may want to purchase several of these sheets for when you move them outdoors inside a barn or outbuilding- attaching several together to make a larger corral.

Each of these sheets is going to cost about 5-15 dollars. Screws about 35-65 cents each.
The vinyl covered table cloth is going to cost very little - not sure how much.


This chick corral is placed on the table cloth covered table.

Seedling Heat Mat

Next you'll want to install your seedling heat mat. This is turned on during hours that you want to turn the heat lamp off.


Tea Cosy


Head to a shop that sells stuff that someone just wanted to get rid of and look for the biggest tea cosy you can find.
It should knit so that anything inside it can breath easily. A tea cosy becomes mother bird. Yes- you'll still have your heat lamp tied up securely- red light is preferable over white-
and you have your thermometer set up so you know what the temperature is - but you allow the birds to sleep- by carefully monitoring the brooder corral - you can turn off the light for several hours a day and may even be able to turn it off altogether once the birds pass a certain age stage- that's given to many factors I can't cover here- but it should suffice to say that keeping a heat lamp turned on all day is neither practical nor necessary. Chicks sleep for a great deal of the day when under their mums so give them a tea cosy -it should always be present- tuck them in under it- have two or three if you feel there's not enough room- if the chicks are too tight- and play the radio- something calming- classical for example- no need for noisy commercials or rap music...
It's a nursery not an industrial chicken mill. We tend to rear our chickens like commercial nurseries- but it's more efficient for corporations producing tens of thousands of chicks to manage their livestock like that- than it is for the household. We've been conditioned to things in the big commercial mind set but that's not how your grandparents were doing it and they made out just fine. I learned the tea cosy and the warming bottle ( versus handy seed mat) from my grandparents who survived the great depression. Keeping their chicks alive was of more paramount importance than it is for most of us- so please keep this in mind when planning out your chick rearing budget.
All that extra electricity is just not necessary and it's really not healthful to rear chicks like that anyway. They need to get out of the light and sleep and yet stay at a fairly stable temperature. Remember, your started pullets need to be hardy enough to survive whatever it is that they have to deal with in their new homes so rearing heritage breeds with some flexibility- away from constant heat- is going to produce chicks with a bit more survivability - less easily stressed as well.



Moving to Feed

Cooked Brown Rice

Ok- here's another place where people just don't use common sense. Pour a bunch of powder into a feeder and leave it be. That's how efficient it's supposed to be but let's think about this for a moment. True, chicks can and do pick up small seeds fairly easily but it's not what their bills are designed for. Chicks end up spilling a huge amount of food onto the ground. They also stir up dust from this food. They inhale the fines/dust from their chick starter and it ends up lodged inside their respiratory system- in their air sacs and sinus cavity where it will often appear again later in life as a respiratory infection that is difficult to treat. So how can you cut down on the amount of feed and kind of feed you are providing without hurting the growth and development of the birds?

Let's travel to Asia for a moment- to the very place where all domestic chickens were originally developed. Do you suppose we can learn anything from them?
Brown Rice is pretty inexpensive. Maybe some of you can tell me how much it costs in your local store? This is material you can load your chicks up with- I know- that's crazy talk!
Here's how I've learned to use it.

I boil up a huge pot of brown rice and mix in a bit of grape seed oil. Grape seed oil! That's fancy talk! Not really- it's a biproduct of vinegar, grape jelly, grape juice and wine making. You very likely have some grape product in your kitchen. True, many Americans do not use grape seed oil in their food but it's probably in your soap, hair conditioner, lotion- even in the gel caps you take for various ailments. I buy grape seed oil in bulk. It's a once every two year buy and it does have many applications. I use grape seed oil because it's healthful and it doesn't go rancid in high temperatures- like you will have in your brooder.

So- I mix in a fair amount of grape seed oil into the cooked brown rice and store in the outdoor refrigerator or during winter in the root cellar- or garage- wherever it's cold enough.
If I'm using commercial soft feed for chicks- like mash or crumble- I'll mix it into the brown rice together with with a tiny portion of finch seed or nijer or rape seed or white millet seed-for good measure- maybe a bag of frozen peas- and I'll do this the day before in a big batch so the soft mash or crumble has time to absorb moisture from the rice as well as be coated in grape seed oil. Alternatively, if I want to go the soy free route- I will use UltraKibble for chicks-mixed into the firm porridge on 25 to 75% ratio -sometimes with a tiny portion of finch seed or nijer or rape seed -white millet seed-for good measure- maybe a bag of frozen peas- all mixed into that giant vat of cooked rice -that's a complete meal-with no soy- Soybean meal is what most chick starter is made from. Regardless of exact recipe- cooked brown rice and grape seed oil mixed into a proper maintenance ration create a firm porridge.
This firm porridge is very filling and their crops will be extended after gorging on their ice cream scoop(s) of the stuff at breakfast. No dust, no waste and I'll only leave out as much as they can consume in ~ two hours.
What do I leave out for the rest of the day! Babies have to have food in front of them all day? Do we do this for chicks so they don't get bored or because they actually need it?
For me it's a waste of feed and conditions the birds with the bad habit of feeling a need to gorge all day regardless if they're hungry and I'm not given to feeding or attracting vermin.
Midday is fruit and forage time. Apples with a corner cut out are a big favorite. A head of lettuce is another. These are put out in the morning and the birds just peck at them the entire day. If they look hungry midday- if the kids are walking by and I'm indisposed or at work- I tell them to throw in an apple midday regardless. Of course I use babycakes from day one and optimal foragecakes (slightly moistened) from day nine on through adulthood.
A single babycake lasts a dozen chicks two weeks- even after it's been consumed because the material is in the digestive system. A foragecake lasts much longer and is naturally very stimulating and rewarding to peck over - as something to do all day- while burning up energy and using the brain- the senses- each tidbit is different from the next- the bill is conditioned from working the foragecake. A single optimal foragecake is going to last a dozen chicks about a month.
At the end of the day just before bedtime, it's time for another helping of firm porridge, a substantially smaller one than the breakfast ration.

Using this protocol farmers that I've known for many years, have cut their energy bill in half or more. They've cut down on their feed bill by upward of 25% -and without exception greatly curtailed health problems and mortality. The best part is being able to deliver started pullets that are ready to assimilate in a chicken house with the least stress and get to the business of being productive layers.

This may all seem like a lot of work- and many will argue that it's not practical. For those of you that are keeping egg diaries- go back and rally up how much time it actually took to drive and purchase feed- and how often - how often did you need to change water and bedding using the commercial flock rearing method- free access to powdered feed all day- what did your electricity bill resemble? What were your genuine experiences? Could it really hurt to experiment with different methods?

 

[tristancolli]

Currently I am paying $15.87 for a 55Lbs bag of chick starter, $15.62 for the 55lbs of grower and $13.76 for the layer pellets. so if you were to convert that into USD you'd be paying about $13.60 to $11.90 a bag.

 

[ginasmarans]

There are advantages to raising your own chicks. You know what they are fed, how they are handlde, exactly how old they are, and with what they come in contact.
Buying hens or POL pullets will cut out the hassels of raising chicks, worrying about disease, what to do with those uh-oh pullets that turn out to be roos and of course,waiting on eggs, but be prepared to pay. Most people are going to want $15/hen and you can't blame them. It costs at least that much, not counting labor costs. I just paid $12.50 for layer pellets and I think the last time I bought grower, it was at least $14/50 lbs. I feed my chicks straight grower until they are 4 1/2 months old, at which time I gradually add layer and reduce the grower until by 6 months old, they are on straight layer. Once my pullets hit 4 1/2 months old, I consider mine POL and it will cost you $15 to buy one.

I normally raise my own chicks unless I know from whom I am buying. I really like fooling with chicks.