Chicken business ideas...

[tribalacres]

Hey I would like to pick your brain a bit. How many birds do you order? When do your order? Every 4 weeks? Do you pasture raise? Do you work with egg layers? What breeds? Lol

We order every four weeks, we ensure the brooder does not ever remain empty. We usually order between 70-120 every time.
They are in a fence within a fence. So yes they are pasture raised. Our organic feed ones are in a tractor within an electric fence.
We do have Egg Layers. We have 16 different breeds cause we have 16 different hens. We had egg layers but there was an attack before we decided this life was for us, lol. Currently We only have our Ayam Cemani laying. It’s not too bad of a size of egg but definitely not big like our old road island reds.

 

[Ruthster55]

Dang, he's on a Different island.


27.35 for broiler starter


Thank you for all this info! Really helpful!

Since I got the land, venison (40k head of deer), bugs, I feel like I could make some money on this and save money on feed.

Wild chickens here got no meat and gives eggs only when broody, they're super small eggs. I use one for my backyard chickens to help hatch my heritage.

$40 for 10lbs of meat (breasts, thighs), tasteless. Caged.
Shortage of eggs.

I think its best if I order broilers for meat and heritage breed for eggs. I read on a lot of places that heritage birds isnt as tender. What do you think?

Manure will be sold by the bucket full.

Chickens will be raised on grass after 4 weeks of age. Will be pulling a rickshaw type structure for shade,feed, and watering area. There are good shaded tree areas as well. I will also be ordering the roll away nest boxes. Doesn't get cold here... hardly rains.

I asked around and everyone would buy chickens to eat and the eggs. We ship everything here all meat and eggs so I dnt see why people wouldn't buy from a local business.

I want to just use 1 breed for the heritage. Delaware chickens is what im looking at. What do you think? Good in hot weather, jumbo, xl eggs.

Did I miss anything lol??

What to grow in the greenhouse depends a lot on how much rain you get and how long the dry season is. The pictures show two different greenhouses. The one with the tropical plants is at around 1600 m elevation in a place that gets a lot of rainfall. The one with the cacti and succulents is at around 2400 m elevation in a place with a strong dry season.

It's great (for you) that there is a shortage of eggs in the area. To sell eggs and distinguish yourself from supermarket eggs, I would strongly recommend having a variety of breeds of hens to get a variety of egg colors. Delawares are great as dual-purpose chickens as are Plymouth Barred Rocks. For egg production, it's hard to go wrong with Rhode Island Reds (Production Reds or regular RIRs) or Golden Comets. You probably want to get some other breeds for variety. You could get some Easter Eggers (or Araucanas) plus some Black Copper Marans. The Marans lay a dark brown egg that sometimes has speckles. You might gamble on a few Minorcas too. They are known for laying large white eggs and might be a little less flighty than Leghorns. Leghorns would work great in your climate if you have a way to keep them in the coop.

With the warm weather of Hawaii, any Mediterranean breed would be a good option as a part of the flock. Can you get any Andalusians or White-Faced Spanish?

Glad you got a Hawaiian chicken to use as a broody! Try to capture a few more hens! You could even catch a hen on her nest and scoop up the eggs and move them all to your farm. Might want to wear gloves for that, though.

Just a small nitpick - when they're broody, they don't lay eggs. That doesn't really matter, because the purpose of keeping Hawaiian chickens is as broody hens rather than as egg layers. I often move broody hens with their babies to cages to keep the babies safe from inclement weather. A few weeks ago, we had to release a broody mom who told us vehemently that she was finished doing her "mom" duties. She laid an egg in the cage!

The difference in meat tenderness between Cornish X and heritage breeds has to do with the length of time to growout the bird, plus also the fact that heritage males are slaughtered closer to their time of sexual maturity. Cornish X are babies when they are slaughtered, which is why the meat has little flavor. A disadvantage of the Cornish X that I forgot to mention in the other post is that they don't do well in the heat. Given your climate, you might want to try just a few, like 10 or 15, for the first order.

For raising meat birds in a hot climate, look into giant Naked Necks and Naked Neck crosses. Advantages (if you can deal with "ugly"): heat tolerance and less feathers to pluck! People have tried crossing Naked Necks with meat hybrids like Freedom Rangers. We once had a frizzled NN freak!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...s-for-meat-hot-climate.1009669/#post-15634778

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/naked-neck-or-nn-crosses-for-meat-hot-climate.1009669/

Have you read anything about Brahmas as meat birds? The grow a lot slower than the Cornish X, but they grow really big. One potential disadvantage with Brahmas is that they have a lot of feathers, which could be a problem if you're processing several at one time. They are really pretty, but that beauty translates into more work at processing time.

 

[Kabootar]

I have heard that Hawaii have a sizeable Asian population, if you can learn caponizing the extra cockerels that people hatch you can exploit the demand for capons in Asian markets. You can make some money plus you will not need to worry about cockerels.

 

[Kabootar]

Supermarkets sells confined chickens right? Or pasture-raised? My chickens will be pasture-rasied. Prices are outrageous here.

Im not quite sure what you're trying to say here.You cant breed your own cornish X. If i got the parent stock wouldn't that mean I have to feed them as well? I'll be purchasing chicks every 2 weeks to keep up with my supply. Will sell fresh but freezer is there as an option if I dnt sell out on the first day.



Do you have a breed in mind? I'm thinking New Hampshires. From a breeder not hatchery. They dress out faster than most heritage breeds and lay around 3 eggs a week. They Also are broody so that we can be somewhat self-sufficient.

Will be sectioning off 8 acres of land for these birds. How many birds do you think I can put on it? I just want to fill an area with the max amount of chickens and then harvest the big ones/older ones.

Or... will I be hurting myself in doing that? And just keep ordering broilers?

New Hampshire hmmm... I have a bunch of them back on the farm. Nothing remarkable about them. There are plenty of breeds who can lay better and who can grow better. I would suggest Marans, La Fleche, Rocks, Brahmas, Delaware etc.

 

[Kabootar]

Eggs are harder to make a profit on than broilers for me personally. 8 acres could hold alot of chickens, but you don't want to over do it or your land will wear out on chickens. With meat birds, they say to only run them over an area once a year (maybe twice would be ok in Hawaii since you don't have a winter?). Layers take up more space but you can leave them on one spot for a good long time as long as it's big enough. If you free range them in the 8 acre area with out sectioning off paddocks, they could easily live on that amount of space and be considered essentially free range since they probably wouldn't venture out of that amount of space even if it wasn't fenced. You would want to consider moving their coop once or twice a year to keep them close to fresh grass because they will tear up the ground directly around the coop.

I have about 60 New Hampshire Reds in with my laying flock and they are good and hardy. Never had any go broody though. I feel like mine lay more eggs per week than 3, but I could be wrong. I'm not keeping track by breed. I also don't hatch my own chicks or let my birds do that. So I'm not sure about all that. I have incubated before and got some cool looking mixed breeds out of it, but that was when it was more of a hobby for me. In terms of breeds - Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, Barred Rocks, Delawares, Rhode Island Reds, and Blue Plymouth Rocks are all breeds that, in my experience, are hardy and lay a good amount of eggs for non-production types.

You suggested almost the same breeds that I did. Chicken people think on same lines. I didn't suggest Orpingtons, because firstly I don't like them, secondly I am not sure they do well in the tropics. I think Cornish and Dorkings are a much better options.

 

[Ruthster55]

I have heard that Hawaii have a sizeable Asian population, if you can learn caponizing the extra cockerels that people hatch you can exploit the demand for capons in Asian markets. You can make some money plus you will not need to worry about cockerels.

Found this mentioning capons in Hawaii -----

http://kaufarmer.blogspot.com/2015/08/capons_22.html

Another thing about caponizing in Hawaii is that if you learned to do it well, you could offer trap-neuter-release services for the young male feral chickens as a charity project. The people who view the feral chickens as noisy pests might be pleased to learn that you are "neutering" them!

You'd need to catch the future feral capons on private property. I believe all chickens are protected on public property in Hawaii.

 

[Kabootar]

The best way to make a million dollars in the chicken business is to start with 2 million dollars....

Good luck

That's funny, but I really find your statement rather discouraging.

 

[Kabootar]

Found this mentioning capons in Hawaii -----

http://kaufarmer.blogspot.com/2015/08/capons_22.html

Another thing about caponizing in Hawaii is that if you learned to do it well, you could offer trap-neuter-release services for the young male feral chickens as a charity project. The people who view the feral chickens as noisy pests might be pleased to learn that you are "neutering" them!

You know on Sundays my mother and or grandmother makes capon gravy after returning from Church we used to eat it with nice long grain rice. I am missing it in Delhi.

About capons mothering chicks. I have seen tribal people doing it to make the hens lay again. They pull the feather from the chest and they hit them with a twig and in the night they snuck the chicks under him. If you ask me I don't find it very pleasant.

 

[Ruthster55]

That's funny, but I really find your statement rather discouraging.

He has a few things in his favor:

1. Large acreage
2. Market where eggs and chicken both sell for a rather high price.
3. Venison meat available in large quantities at very low cost as protein supplement
4. Warm climate

 

[Ruthster55]

You know on Sundays my mother and or grandmother makes capon gravy after returning from Church we used to eat it with nice long grain rice. I am missing it in Delhi.

About capons mothering chicks. I have seen tribal people doing it to make the hens lay again. They pull the feather from the chest and they hit them with a twig and in the night they snuck the chicks under him. If you ask me I don't find it very pleasant.

I think they did that in the old time US. It wasn't necessary to hit the poor hen or capon with twigs. They just took the baby chicks at night from the hen and put the baby chicks under the capon.

This type of old-timers also sometimes kept game hens as their broodies if they didn't have any capons. They would put standard-breed eggs under the Game hens. That is a similar idea to keeping some feral Hawaiian hens as broodies.