I'm sure this comes up all the time, but what does it cost to put a chicken on the table. I have the space, hardware, water and time. I have about fifty laying hens & pullets and I'm thinking about starting to grow our own meat birds. I have slaughtered chickens before but its been a while. Thank you, Virginia and Steven F.
I just saw this table on the Welp Hatchery website... That's for Cornish X Rocks, a bird breed to grow fast. We had 25 for the first time last year. I think a fifty-pound bag of feed cost $12. So, you should be able to grow three birds on the equivalent of a bag of feed. Add the cost for three birds, and you should have a rough idea. We had a couple couples go in on the birds with us, so we paid for everything and raised them. Our friends helped us kill and clean the birds, then bought them from us. I think my wife calculated it out to almost $10 a bird, but that was starting from nothing, so she counted the feeders and waterers and other incidentals.
Ours cost just under $2 a pound (and this included a $1.50 processing fee per head). Even though I can now get $0.79 a pound roasters in the grocery store ... I wouldn't do it. There is nothing that compares to our home grown birds.
I'm sure you can go to your local store and get them for $.79/lb. If cost is your only concern, don't bother raising them.
Your wise to ask your costs up front, there have been a few that got into this thinking they would save money and got a rude awakening. I agree, there is no comparison in bird taste or in just knowing they were treated right and fed healthy. But we do pay for that. Now if your buying birds from the stores that do bring in free range organic and all that your going to save money, but if your currently buying Tyson type chicken your costs are going up.
Just got cornish x two weeks ago. My .... they are ugly. They have grown soooo fast. They do not have feathers on their butts or bellies. Is this normal ?
My Cornish X's cost about 6.50/bird. The key is to buy feed in bulk, rather than individual bags from TSC or even the feed mill. It saves you about 1/2 the feed cost to buy it 500lbs at a time.
