Decreasing the financial burden of raising chickens

[Chelly]

Speaking of Meat and Eggs...

Does anyone know how much per pound your own grown chicken would cost from buying the chicks, cost of feed, meds and beding etc. - up to processing?

I'd be interested to know, to compare to the cost of buying chicken for dinner.

 

[Omeletta]

I'd be interested in that too, Chelly. We have a large family, so we need a fair sized bird in the pot. For a 2.5 kg bird at the store is $10.50. Surely I can do it cheaper? There is an excellent book, by Joel Salitin titled Pastured Poultry. It talks about tractoring the birds, moving the pens daily, gravity feed waterers, and electri netting for protection from preds.

Anyone have any current info collected on this? Pease Share! Your parents taught you to share, surely! It's good for you! (And me, too!)

 

[buc]

http://www.agnr.umd.edu/MCE/Publications/Publication.cfm?ID=323

this web site stated that the cost of feed is 2/3 of the total cost of raising the bird.

 

[BigMama]

My DH and I never really sat down and crunched the numbers, but we figured we had $5-7 invested in our meat birds.

This sounded really great, until a neighbor down the road told us that he bought chickens already processed from the Amish for $5 a bird.

He did say that there birds weren't as big as ours.

I'm wondering if this is because they free ranged their birds.