Chicken Feed Costs

[RebekahTN]

We crate the birds the night before and drop them on a trailer next to our butchering building. Sawhorses with kill cones on gravel. Scalder and plucker stationed on sealed wooden deck with a roof - no walls, which is attached to the evisceration and packaging room. Evisceration and packing has stainless tables, handwashing sink, hoses on hangers above 2 evisceration stations and a 10x10 bay door for airing out. Small hot water heater for cleaning hooked up to our well close by. I run it with three people total. One on catch/kill, one on sclad/pluck and one on evisceration. I generally man the kill cones and will jump in as a second eviscerator occasionally and I will just generally take some time to make sure all parts of the process are working smoothly and no problems are popping up with equipment, etc. We try to have our output at 4 minutes per bird once we get going. Sometimes we can go faster. We pack all the birds in shrink wrap bags and air chill/rest over night in a bast cooler before heat shrinking the entire batch on the next morning. And we generally sell about 65-75% of every batch the day we shrink wrap them (the day after butchering) so we don't have to freeze most of them - which is nice.

I would love to see and or hear how you set up raising your flock to this point. I'm not real interested in this part of chicken business but would love to know how a small scale (500-1000 or so birds) hatchery/raising of birds might look like.
How do you contain your birds while they grow out? what does the feed and watering system look like, how many people on a day to day basis would be needed that kind of thing.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

In my opinion, if you are not saving or making money on eggs, fruits, and vegetables you are doing something wrong and/or highly inefficient. My flock of 50 chickens pay for themselves throughout the year, and even make me money on a yearly basis. Same with my garden, it makes me money.

Same here, the money I get from selling my ladies eggs pays for everything they need, and my garden takes care of all my fresh produce needs for about 9 months out of the year, that's quite a bit of money saved considering grocery store prices

 

[Cazook]

Big difference to the kind of forage they are getting... if you are growing patches of alfalfa and high-protein plants they get a lot more than on grass. But what is really important is the insect content imo. If you have live compost piles they can turn to get grubs, it helps a lot with the calories.

Imo best advantage of free ranging is the egg quality. It's been proven in studies that chickens that forage on open ground with a range of grasses, insects etc have a better nutritional profile re the types of fats and protein and vitamin content of the eggs.

 

[iwltfum]

I would love to see and or hear how you set up raising your flock to this point. I'm not real interested in this part of chicken business but would love to know how a small scale (500-1000 or so birds) hatchery/raising of birds might look like.
How do you contain your birds while they grow out? what does the feed and watering system look like, how many people on a day to day basis would be needed that kind of thing.

It's just me on a daily basis. I bring on two hired hands on butcher day. We brood all our birds at no less than .5 sqft per bird for three weeks. Then it's out to pasture at 3 square feet per bird. Pasture pens are moved daily.

We use movable brooder sheds to brood the clutches. Most of our sheds are 8x8. Purpose built for brooding our batches of chicks. They have water container and temperature control panel on outside. Built so a small atv can drag to sunny location during the spring and fall and drag back into a shady location suring the heat of summer. Working on solar set up so they don't need an extension cord from the barn.

We use salatin style pasture pens. Same waters and feeders as he uses. Large trough feeders filled twice daily. Plasson bell broiler waterers from day one to butcher (same waterers in the brooder sheds as in the pasture pens). Works great for us. My apologies for the abbreviated response. Our first batch of broilers and muscovy ducks arrived this morning and of course it was windy and freezing cold and snowing!

EDIT: Wanted to add that our 600 birds per year is spread out over as much time as we can get out of the season. For us it's Late-april to late october or so. This year we are doing 5 batches of 130 / spread out in 3 week intervals.

Also our free range laying hens are managed completely differently than the broilers. It's a totally different system.

 

[bill3607]

Feed can get pricey yes but free ranging them is great for them and in my opinion the eggs taste better too

Some advice you can use to save money is if you have any table scraps you could always feed them some of that. Chickens are like goats they'll eat anything, even KFC

Yes, chickens will eat almost anything even nails, screws and yes....chicken. Goats on the other hand not so much.

Goats eating anything is more a myth. They actually can be quite hardheaded about what they will not eat. They also do not like it much when you change it up on them.

I never have figured out exactly how the myth got started. Maybe, because they will taste test a lot of things to see if it is something they want to eat.

Have you ever heard the one about them eating metal cans? Also, a myth. They will not eat a metal can. However, if the can has a label on it then they might look like they are trying to eat it because they do like the glue that the label is adhered with. So, they do like glue, but not metal.

 

[RebekahTN]

It's just me on a daily basis. I bring on two hired hands on butcher day. We brood all our birds at no less than .5 sqft per bird for three weeks. Then it's out to pasture at 3 square feet per bird. Pasture pens are moved daily.

We use movable brooder sheds to brood the clutches. Most of our sheds are 8x8. Purpose built for brooding our batches of chicks. They have water container and temperature control panel on outside. Built so a small atv can drag to sunny location during the spring and fall and drag back into a shady location suring the heat of summer. Working on solar set up so they don't need an extension cord from the barn.

We use salatin style pasture pens. Same waters and feeders as he uses. Large trough feeders filled twice daily. Plasson bell broiler waterers from day one to butcher (same waterers in the brooder sheds as in the pasture pens). Works great for us. My apologies for the abbreviated response. Our first batch of broilers and muscovy ducks arrived this morning and of course it was windy and freezing cold and snowing!

EDIT: Wanted to add that our 600 birds per year is spread out over as much time as we can get out of the season. For us it's Late-april to late october or so. This year we are doing 5 batches of 130 / spread out in 3 week intervals.

Also our free range laying hens are managed completely differently than the broilers. It's a totally different system.

THANK YOU for such detail! Do you have a picture of the brooder sheds?

 

[RebekahTN]

our free range laying hens are managed completely differently than the broilers. It's a totally different system.

I am looking for something more manageable for my grow out pens. I have several different systems depending on the age. For my chicks I have 2 of the stackable metal brooders like TSC has. The newborns that I don't sell immediately (regular/bantam - not meat birds) go up top under a heat plate and as they get 2-3 weeks old, If not sold yet (ones we are letting to grow out to see if they will go back into breeder program) I move them down to the second one which uses the heater that comes with it set on heater instead of brooder.
When they get 4-6 weeks old I move them outside to a tractor with a heat plate in it. They use nipple waterers from day 1. In the tractor we do nipples and regular waters and a regular feeder. They go through and waste SO MUCH feed at this age. They think it needs to be on the ground but they can only eat from the feeder.... UGGG
I have a tractor with my showgirls that we designed a spot when building it for a large feeder that I can add feed to from the outside. I also ended up adding a small one up top because those things STAY broody. When one starts sitting the other 3 think they need to help her and they all crowd into one nest to brood. I also put a small water up there for the broodies when brooding or babies hatch. There is a regular hanging waterer on the bottom but I don't love it. I would like something bigger and more automatic that doesn't take up room... (don't we all - LOL)
My 8-12 week olds move down to the barn into a coop I bought 1st year with chicks when I had no clue that was all but falling apart after the first year outside. So we moved it into the barn, took the roof off for light and added chicken wire to keep them in and reinforced what is falling apart. It will not be moved again as it will fall the rest of the way apart if it moves to much. It has standard nipple waterer and feeders. They eat so much though, that I need a better feeder for in there.
My older chickens and ducks free range within 1/2 acre chain link fenced in area. They chickens and ducks are in 2 separate areas, not because the ducks were bothering the chickens but because the chickens watch the ducks and think they should be able to swim too and end up drowning..... They each have a feeder that holds a 50 pound bag of feed. The chickens have a nipple waterer that holds 12 gallons of water on the outside and then some smaller waterers in the barn. The ducks have their pond and a black tub for water. I like their set up. I check on them every day when gathering eggs but I don't have to refill their food and water MOST of the time except on the weekends.
I have a rain barrel I use to get water for everyone.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Goats eating anything is more a myth. They actually can be quite hardheaded about what they will not eat. They also do not like it much when you change it up on them.

I never have figured out exactly how the myth got started. Maybe, because they will taste test a lot of things to see if it is something they want to eat.

While I'm new to goat ownership, I can understand how their grazing behavior might create the impression of eating anything, particularly as they (or mine) show a distinct preference for things we would find unpalatable. Like the new leaves and thorny stems of my wild blackberry bushes.

But yes, they won't eat everything. My pasture is quite varied (deliberately, we had no idea what might grow), and there are things the goats thus far show no interest in. Cudweed, for instance. And sadly, I have a lot of marsh cudweed as "volunteers" on the property after it was cleared two years back. Its not something I deliberately introduced.

The chickens like some bugs in it, however - so as long as it doesn't take over more of the pasture, it stays.

 

[bill3607]

While I'm new to goat ownership, I can understand how their grazing behavior might create the impression of eating anything, particularly as they (or mine) show a distinct preference for things we would find unpalatable. Like the new leaves and thorny stems of my wild blackberry bushes.

But yes, they won't eat everything. My pasture is quite varied (deliberately, we had no idea what might grow), and there are things the goats thus far show no interest in. Cudweed, for instance. And sadly, I have a lot of marsh cudweed as "volunteers" on the property after it was cleared two years back. Its not something I deliberately introduced.

The chickens like some bugs in it, however - so as long as it doesn't take over more of the pasture, it stays.

Yes, and goats are not really grazers like cows. Goats are more browsers. And, they can get fixated on something and just eat it and eat it and refuse to eat something new.

I had kudzu on some of my property that I wanted them to eat and hopefully destroy. I tried and tried and tried to get them to eat it and they refused. Then, after a couple years went by and they just started eating it and acted like it was the best thing ever. Completely destroyed it (kudzu is not easy to destroy) and then seemed to be ticked off when there was not anymore. You just never know with goats.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes, and goats are not really grazers like cows. Goats are more browsers. And, they can get fixated on something and just eat it and eat it and refuse to eat something new.

I had kudzu on some of my property that I wanted them to eat and hopefully destroy. I tried and tried and tried to get them to eat it and they refused. Then, after a couple years went by and they just started eating it and acted like it was the best thing ever. Completely destroyed it (kudzu is not easy to destroy) and then seemed to be ticked off when there was not anymore. You just never know with goats.

I'm waiting for them to discover my youpon holly. Like Kudzu, it keeps coming back!