Cost to finish meat birds

[Winsor Woods]

if the birds are just for you, I'd say that you should do it. I've noticed that the quality of the chicken is far superior to that of the supermarket. You can't use the quantity/price comparison to make your decision. I can eat 5 times as much supermarket chicken and not feel full compared to my homegrown chickens. The energy content in homegrown chickens is much higher and you'll know what I mean as soon as your eat your first one. I can go 8-10 hours on just one half of a chicken breast. (full left or right side of chicken breast). I couldn't even come close to doing that with a supermarket bird. So I'm just saying there may be variables involved that you're not aware of. Don't get sucked into evaluating your decision solely on quantity versus cost. That's what Commercial Food wants you to do.

Dan

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Quote:
So, you're saying that there are more calories in a home grown chicken than one purchased from a supermarket?

Five times, huh? I'm sorry, but I find your comments hard to believe. Could you please provide some supporting documentation to substantiate your claims?

 

[dadof4]

I fiqure my birds to come out too about $6.50 as well. A regular fryer at the grocery store is about $4, but a free range or organic is three times that. There is no comparision when it comes taste, at least in my opinion. My son can only eat a clean diet and I prefer to know where my meat came from and how it was processed. I wish you great luck with venture.
I'm not real sure about the calories/energy content thing.

 

[UncleHoot]

From a post of mine from last year, I had this:
--
cost of brooder ($0)
cost of chicken tractor, or housing ($250 or $42/batch amortized across 6 batches)
cost of feeders/waterers/lamps ($70 or about $12/batch amortized)
cost of pine bedding for use in brooder ($25/batch)
cost of electricity used in brooder for heat lamps (est. $10/batch)
cost of chicks ($53 shipped - received 51 birds)
cost of feed ($224 - 2 bags @ $14.50 and 15 @ $13.00)
cost of processing ($96 - 48 birds lived to slaughter)
--

My feed costs, now that I'm kind of mixing it myself*, are around $9.20/bag, which is substantially less than I was paying last year.

*I buy a feed concentrate for $16.50/bag, then buy the corn from a friend at $0.25/bushel above the day's market price, and have it ground. I mix it together at 60% corn, and 40% concentrate. The $9.20/bag does not include the cost of buying a cheap cement mixer ($120), nor does it include the garbage cans I bought to store the mixed feed ($45), which probably should be amortized as well

 

[kingmt]

Quote:
So, you're saying that there are more calories in a home grown chicken than one purchased from a supermarket?

Five times, huh? I'm sorry, but I find your comments hard to believe. Could you please provide some supporting documentation to substantiate your claims?

Nutrition is a lot to calculate & will change with every bird. I do believe there is more bird per bite then there is from grocery store birds & I know there is more food per pound. Commercial food has so much filler that the body can not use a nutrition. I don't know if I could go 8 hours between meals with it but I know both of my grandpas did & so did my mom & dad growing up. I worked with grandpa growing up & he wouldn't even let me eat until 2PM & then I only got 4 crackers & a drink of water until we went back to the house at 7PM when it was getting dark early.

 

[Winsor Woods]

Quote:
So, you're saying that there are more calories in a home grown chicken than one purchased from a supermarket?

Five times, huh? I'm sorry, but I find your comments hard to believe. Could you please provide some supporting documentation to substantiate your claims?

I'm not saying that there are 5 times more calories....I'm saying that I (Me personally) only have to eat 1/5th as much chicken when I eat my homegrown chicken for the same "feeling of nourishment" compared to supermarket chicken. This is entirely anecdotal. For me the proof was in the pudding. In taking the next mental leap, I can only explain this phenomenon by postulating that there is more of what my body needs in homegrown chicken versus supermarket chicken. What else could I think??? What would you think if you experienced the same? As you can see from some other posts here, I'm not the only one who has experienced similar personal findings.

In my most humble opinion, a great deal of our poor decision making as a society stems from an insatiable desire to assign a number to everything. Everything has to be measured and more is always better. When something isn't measured or can't be measured, it has a default value of zero. People have been conditioned to read packaging and look for lowest fat, or highest protein, etc. Quit believing everything you read and start letting your body tell you what it needs.

For most of human existence, people lived by trusting what their bodies were telling them. It's only recently that we've started trusting labels more than our bodies. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for scientific study and measurements. I'm just saying that we've forsaken a natural communication with our bodies because of what a label or report says. In many times we've gone against what our body is telling us.

So you are free to go find any supporting or contradictory study on this matter that you want. You may even provide links here in this thread or PM me with it. I'd be interested to read it, but at the end of the day, I'll trust my body over a report/study, especially when a report is trying to tell me that there is "no statistically significant difference" between my homegrown chicken and supermarket chicken. To that, my body screams that it's a lie of epic proportions.

Respectfully,
Dan

 

[Julie_A]

Quote:
So, you're saying that there are more calories in a home grown chicken than one purchased from a supermarket?

Five times, huh? I'm sorry, but I find your comments hard to believe. Could you please provide some supporting documentation to substantiate your claims?

I'm not saying that there are 5 times more calories....I'm saying that I (Me personally) only have to eat 1/5th as much chicken when I eat my homegrown chicken for the same "feeling of nourishment" compared to supermarket chicken. This is entirely anecdotal. For me the proof was in the pudding. In taking the next mental leap, I can only explain this phenomenon by postulating that there is more of what my body needs in homegrown chicken versus supermarket chicken. What else could I think??? What would you think if you experienced the same? As you can see from some other posts here, I'm not the only one who has experienced similar personal findings.

In my most humble opinion, a great deal of our poor decision making as a society stems from an insatiable desire to assign a number to everything. Everything has to be measured and more is always better. When something isn't measured or can't be measured, it has a default value of zero. People have been conditioned to read packaging and look for lowest fat, or highest protein, etc. Quit believing everything you read and start letting your body tell you what it needs.

For most of human existence, people lived by trusting what their bodies were telling them. It's only recently that we've started trusting labels more than our bodies. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for scientific study and measurements. I'm just saying that we've forsaken a natural communication with our bodies because of what a label or report says. In many times we've gone against what our body is telling us.

So you are free to go find any supporting or contradictory study on this matter that you want. You may even provide links here in this thread or PM me with it. I'd be interested to read it, but at the end of the day, I'll trust my body over a report/study, especially when a report is trying to tell me that there is "no statistically significant difference" between my homegrown chicken and supermarket chicken. To that, my body screams that it's a lie of epic proportions.

Respectfully,
Dan

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Quote:
No, I'm not the one making the dubious claims. However, if you put your claims of a much higher energy content on a label I bet you could be sued for false advertising. I see this is pointless because you are basing your assertions on how you feel, and would reject any scientific report on suspicious grounds.

I raise meat ducks, and the difference between my ducks and ones from a commercial farm is that my ducks are allowed to graze in a pasture. At best this imparts a different flavor and perhaps a slightly healthier meat.

 

[Winsor Woods]

Just because I don't have a scientific report with hard numbers doesn't make my claims dubious. I ask you again, how would you explain my experience? How would you explain the experiences of kingmt and his family? Just because you say, "at best imparts a different flavor and is slightly healthier" doesn't make it so either. This is a perfect case of what I was saying earlier....Just because you can't quantify something, doesn't mean it's meaningless. It's a phenomenon that is not easily explained with numbers. I certainly do know what MY body is telling ME. It may not be the same for you, or perhaps you're too conditioned to listen to commercialized AG and their skewed studies. You do whatever you like. I really don't care. I don't care if you don't believe my experience. One thing is for sure, you won't ever be open to such wonderful realizations with your mind so closed to the world.

I'm sure commercialized food would be happy to hear that you trust data over your own body's needs. After all, SOMEONE needs to eat that supermarket chicken and keep them in business.

I don't put labels on any of my chickens so no danger of being sued. Thank you for your concern, though.


I sure hope that someday your mind opens up enough that you can see beyond the "Matrix." There really is another world out there just waiting for you, Neo....er.....Le Canard.

Dan

 

[kingmt]

Quote:
How do you argue & say the same thing? If you tell someone that your meat is healthier then you are saying that it has more nutrition pound for pound.