Chicken Feed Costs

[iwltfum]

I’m actually interested on how to make money on eggs for consumption. Sincerely, please lay this out and how to scale..or PM me. I have space for probably 10,000 chickens but i a

have you thought about buying an automatic door to the run on amazon? i think i paid about $100...but it’s automatic and keeps critters out. i don’t know how big your door is but mine is only about 1 square foot for 24 chickens...plus, it can be set to a photocell. i have mine open one hour after first light so that they are “encouraged” to lay in the nesting box and a 45 min delay after dark.

Egg profits are thin at best. Prices suck and feed just went up another 25% on average. We make less than a dollar per dozen but we keep raising laying hens because eggs bring the customers in to buy other products like meat, veggies, and dairy.

 

[RoosterML]

Egg profits are thin at best. Prices suck and feed just went up another 25% on average. We make less than a dollar per dozen but we keep raising laying hens because eggs bring the customers in to buy other products like meat, veggies, and dairy.

Are your birds processed in a usda facility for retail sale or does Maine not require it?

 

[Brooks_]

Are your birds processed in a usda facility for retail sale or does Maine not require it?

Pretty sure it can be done under state inspection as well. Sales are limited to in state then. Also, labeling "for animal feed/use" will get you around any inspection (in most states, I think).

 

[riss]

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

 

[Mayokay]

I’m actually interested on how to make money on eggs for consumption. Sincerely, please lay this out and how to scale..or PM me. I have space for probably 10,000 chickens but i a

have you thought about buying an automatic door to the run on amazon? i think i paid about $100...but it’s automatic and keeps critters out. i don’t know how big your door is but mine is only about 1 square foot for 24 chickens...plus, it can be set to a photocell. i have mine open one hour after first light so that they are “encouraged” to lay in the nesting box and a 45 min delay after dark.

I already have an automatic door that opens/closes by itself, but needs to stay open during the day. The chickens come in and out to eat, drink and lay eggs in the nesting box, so it will need to stay open. Hopefully, the step feeder should be enough.

 

[iwltfum]

Are your birds processed in a usda facility for retail sale or does Maine not require it?

We fall under federal poultry exemption - under 2000 birds/year. Our butchering facility is state inspected, which is essentially just registration, application, and fees - while agreeing to random inspection if they feel that it's necessary for some reason. Maine is actually more strict than most states in regards to small scale poultry exemptions.

 

[RoosterML]

We fall under federal poultry exemption - under 2000 birds/year. Our butchering facility is state inspected, which is essentially just registration, application, and fees - while agreeing to random inspection if they feel that it's necessary for some reason. Maine is actually more strict than most states in regards to small scale poultry exemptions.

What’s your butchering setup like?

 

[Shamo Hybrid]

When I do the math..... I'm probably in the thousand now in cost of keeping these ungrateful birds of mine. Sometimes I do regret raising these things, if I can go back I wouldn't bother with them. Don't want to sell them either because they are the fighting oriental gamefowl variety and people might use them as such. Can't eat them either.

 

[iwltfum]

What’s your butchering setup like?

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.

 

[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.

Thanks for sharing.