Can you MAKE MONEY with chickens?

[ncarper]

People keep mentioning “real costs” in factoring how much it takes to raise chickens. In these real costs they include: personal labor(time), land, and taxes. Here’s my question to those who always mention these “real costs”. Do you figure these real costs in everything you do at your personal residence? How about the real cost of watching TV?

Let’s think about it for a moment. Though I don’t watch much TV let’s assume that I watch the average 5 hours (according Nielson’s “Three Screen Report”) a day.
My monthly expenses for housing, taxes, and utilities are $1400 breaking this down to an hourly rate it costs $1.92 for every hour of TV watching – That’s $9.60 per day and $290.00 per month. This of course doesn’t include my labor (time). Since many folks want to include time cost into their “real cost”, as though their free time really costs money, I’ll use a nominal rate $10.00/hour. This increases the cost of watching TV to $11.92/hour, $59.60/day, and $1,800/month. WOW!!!!! Who knew that watching TV was so expensive?

Let’s face it folks. Regardless of what I do or don’t do with my free time I’ll still have to pay for my house, taxes, and utilities. The TV watching didn’t increase any of these costs, just like raising chickens won’t increase how much you pay for your house, land, and taxes. As for the cost of labor (time), unless you are taking time away from paid work to do or not to do something it is not rational to include that time as cost. To do so would then add that cost (time/labor) to everything you do/don’t do.

 

[BayouPoules]

Quote:
Awesome! Wonderfully stated.... Great ideas! It takes a lot of work though, and it depends on the local market. Most folks just want eggs, they are not educated on chicken breeds and what the SOP calls for. Heck, most of the time they don't even know the name of the breed they are interested in (my experience).

Are you from Greenfire Farms?

I have drooled over your website so many times and have actually considered making a purchase, because, thanks to sites like this, I have become educated on the rarity of some species... I can see it now, tough.. If I bought an pair of your

, bred them and posted for sale or took to a swap, and priced them at $50 a piece which is an insultingly low price to begin with, most folks would say "$50 for a "special" sussex, that's crazy".

Too bad it has to be that way. Kudos to you - you've put so much effort in your business. Thank you and I hope to one day place an order!!!!

Ya know,.. I understand this and DO agree,..but I can see that it would change some things for a lot of people.
I was blessed to have grown up with a daddy that could afford to give his daughters high priced top quality horses and other animals to show and raise and all the trappings that go with it. But I could never do that for my DD as a stay at home Mom and neither could a lot of other folks. We CAN afford right now to provide her with some very nice quality breeder chickens that giver her the opportunity to compete and maybe win and this is true of many, many chicken families and FFA'ers and 4-H'ers. We too have drooled over those same Jubilee Orpingtons,.. and it gives my DD something to work toward and save her money for,. that she can actually afford. I am not disagreeing with what's been said,. just saying that if and when it happens,. it will become another exclusive hobby that many families wont be able to afford. so for now,.. we are grateful and ,.. DD is breeding the best she can with what we've got ,.. (A very nice BYC SQ breeder has offered to help her to further the breed) and we are ,. like many others spending more than we had thought we would,. but at least we can carefully afford it,..so thanks to all those great people/breeders that spend so much time and money and hard work improving the breeds for the love of it and giving some us a chance to enjoy them too!

 

[stoneunhenged]

Quote:
We are responding to the question of whether someone can make a profit raising chickens in the backyard. It's a legitimate question. In order to determine if a profit exists, you have to know two things: Your revenue and your costs. If you're selling eggs for the table, you're competing against large businesses that factor the real costs of production into their profit calculations, including things like labor, land costs, and taxes. So, if you want a fair comparison to your competition, I'd respectfully suggest that you need to calculate those costs as well.

If you're raising chickens purely as a leisure-time activity, I guess your TV analogy is correct. But, many people don't have that luxury or orientation.

 

[bywaterdog]

Quote:
We are responding to the question of whether someone can make a profit raising chickens in the backyard. It's a legitimate question. In order to determine if a profit exists, you have to know two things: Your revenue and your costs. If you're selling eggs for the table, you're competing against large businesses that factor the real costs of production into their profit calculations, including things like labor, land costs, and taxes. So, if you want a fair comparison to your competition, I'd respectfully suggest that you need to calculate those costs as well.

If you're raising chickens purely as a leisure-time activity, I guess your TV analogy is correct. But, many people don't have that luxury or orientation.

This is the BACKYARD chicken forum, not the Chicken Industry Industrial forum. The fact is, that most folks here are have the luxury to call free time FREE. Land sakes, how much does your wife charge when she changes diapers? Spread sheets should be on the bottom of a bird cage because they usually are full of s**t.
I appreciate my chickens, not depreciate them.

 

[darkmatter]

I've been keeping chickens for eggs, meat, fertilizer, and bug patrol for over 15 years now. Discounting the initial start up cost of building the Coop/run and purchase of the Dual Purpose chickens. My DW has been able some years to equal the cost of feed by selling the surplus eggs to her associates/friends. We normally hatch our own eggs with an incubator and/or broody so the annual replacement cost of chickens are minimal.

But in order to make a small fortune in the Chicken business, you have to start with a large one.

 

[eatmorechicken]

What about raising long hackle breeds for fly tying. I have seen hackles sold for $100 each. the whole bird probably made $200. I think it would be really difficult to make money from eggs and meat production alone. You just can't compete with commercial farms. Perhaps free range organic eggs and meat could be sold for double the price of grocery store products. But those niche markets would be hard to reach. However, we have a natural foods store that sells local eggs for $4 a dozen, and they sell out fast. Other than that I would believe you would need to develop/acquire a breed that appeals to the richer part of the poultry hobby community. I'm currently developing a breed that lays golden eggs

 

[poularde]

This post is about if you can make money with chickens. It is wonderful that people keep chickens as pets. They are wonderful and useful pets. Not many pets can pay for their food! No one is saying anything is wrong with enjoying your free time with your birds. I know I would do it for free! I think stoneunhenged is talking about making a business with chickens. I have the ideal that someone can make a business with chickens without going with the factory farm type of production. It seems possible to me. You need to sell more valuable birds. Again this is a discussion about a business with birds. More power to anyone who has a hobby or are making themselves more sustainable with chickens. I hope to hear people's ideas and things that have worked for them. We are all different and in this country we are allowed to be able to have a small business and come up with new ideas! Let's just be open-minded and brainstorm ideas about a business with chickens.

I like where you are coming from eatmorechicken!

 

[darkmatter]

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Already tried that, talked to a fly-tie(er) that was paying $60 for a hackle patch from the catalogs. I butchered 6 of my Roos and saved the hackle patches, cured them, then sent them to him free to try them out. He kinda turned his nose up and said they weren't graded colored for tying specified fly types, but said he would use them anyway for misc undescribed flies. (He also didn't offer any money for future hackle patches----I think I gave him ten years worth of fly tying material)

 

[eatmorechicken]

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Thanks poularde...I think it is absolutely possible to make money and profits from small flocks. We live in changing times where the social classes are becoming increasingly divergent, new technologies are being developed constantly, and people are living greener lifstyles and are becoming conscious of their food. I find that we are entering an age of opportunity, and the person who discovers an untapped resource with chickens will make a sustainable income, and love what they do.

 

[protodon]

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I agree with you 100%. I don't think you can include taxes and mortgage in your profit calculations UNLESS you bought the home or separate land specifically to raise chickens. Otherwise, you just can't really break things down like that. You could however include utilities as you might need electricity to run incubators, heat lamps and lights. But to include your mortgage is just silly.

And the only way I can think to make money off chickens on a small-scale is to raise a very rare breed of chicken and sell eggs and birds or to create your own breed and sell those because they would be even rarer. However, with the second option you'd have to create something that people actually want and not everyone wants what you want, hence all the many kinds of chickens we have today.