broiler chicken raising

[purrson]

Hi I am from South Africa, and I'm really intersted in raising broiler chicks and selling them once they are grown. But I am having trouble finding local hatcheries for buying the day old chicks.

●local hatchery VS ○ shipping hatchery???

 

[iwltfum]

Do you have experience raising broilers? If not, I would suggest doing a couple small batches either for yourself or to sell/give to friends and neighbors to get their opinion about packaging, pricing, size, and overall value. It will be very helpful and slightly less financially risky to understand your market a little before diving in head first.

Unfortunately I can't offer any help finding hatcheries in South Africa as I am in the states. If you have a local hatchery with a reputable name, then I would probably go with that since it would be much less stress on the chicks vs shipping them.

 

[purrson]

I have read guides on raising them and all the requirements but what I lack is the resourcesful action plan kinda guide

 

[iwltfum]

That's definitely a good thing to be doing. Before I first started raising broilers for sale, I was working on someone else's farm that, among other farm products, raised a large amount of turkeys every year, mostly for thanksgiving sales. My boss offered me a portion of land to be able to raise broilers on and I had a whole plan for a sizable operation, complete with spreadsheets with financial info, feed requirements, scheduling batches, etc. I had read all the books and done my research and felt prepared.

I never ended up following through on that business plan because I raised one batch as a trial and realized I need to raise a few more test batches so I could get all the details down - details that I could never had learned from the internet or books, and alot of stuff needed to be learned before I could sell my birds and feel good about the quality I was providing to the customer. Now, seven years later and on my own farm, I am just starting to raise the amount of birds that I had originally planed to raise at the other farm and I'm grateful for the years that I spent trialing, testing, and doing downsized versions of my original plan, since I would have been very burnt out if I had attempted what I was planning right off the bat.

Hey I'm not saying you shouldn't raise broilers for sale. Just be cautious before you dump alot of money into it. There is a reason that giant corporations own 99.9% of all chicken sales in developed countries - because it's difficult to make a profit as an independent. I wish you all the success in the world!

 

[3KillerBs]

You probably want to go to the meat bird forum for this question.